Forum Discussion

Sarah_E's avatar
Sarah_E
Brass Contributor
Jun 22, 2021

Email Notifications for Comments on Planner Tasks

Please add the ability for the assigned person(s) / creator on a Planner Task to receive an email when the task is commented on.  I use Planner to manage tasks assigned to several different departments with about 200 people on the Team, and when they comment back to me after creating the task I don't get notified.

 

Need a solution ASAP (and please don't tell me to comment on every task I create - I want a solution not a workaround)

 

Thank you

  • People expect Trello's functionality, not more and not less. In the current form, planner is a fancy XLS sheet and relatively useless for said reasons (email notification, @ mentions, drag and drop of files). Really depressing.

  • Another (temporary) solution could be that when a task is created and assigned to someone, their name is automatically added and linked via @name in the comments and then also receives comment updates from that point on.
    But for this, the @mention feature should finally be available in comments as well (as it has been for a long time in several other M365 products).

    Furthermore, it should be taken into account that if an assignee is deleted, this will also be logged in the comment and this person will then at best no longer receive updates. But since there will be cases where this will still be desired, this should be optionally possible (e.g. with a radio button).

    Instead of an assignee field, you could also create an additional notification field where, in addition to the assignees, people can register/follow a task to stay up to date on the task.

    There would be so many possibilities - only it would be nice if this would become reality soon! Thank you very much!
  • dcdman8's avatar
    dcdman8
    Copper Contributor
    I think the better solution is the use of POWER AUTOMATE by creating a flow that sends email to those assigned, while I am just learning this software, it does seem like the solution (of course, once the flow is figured out - you should likely turn off the Planner Setting for notifications). Just a thought
    • ThreePointNZ's avatar
      ThreePointNZ
      Copper Contributor

      dcdman8 That's a great idea, except there is no "Planner comment" triggers in Power Automate. It has task created, assigned to... but nothing for when a comment is added. Annoying!

      • Caroline Berkhout's avatar
        Caroline Berkhout
        Copper Contributor

        I built this exact Flow with Power Automate, but it operates on the Group inbox.
        There's a template that posts a Teams message whenever a new Email arrives to the group inbox, I've modified to send an email instead.

        Trigger: When a new Email arrives to a group
        After the "Get a thread post" you'll need to get the information from the Task, as the email does not contain any "Assigned to" information.
        There's button in the email "Reply to this task in Planner" use Find Text Position and Substring actions to extract the ID of the Task
        Find Text Position 1: %22%7D"
        Substring 1: start 0 end <result from Find Text Position 1>
        Find Text position 2: task%2F
        Compose: add 7 to <result of Text Position 2>
        Substring 2: start <result of Compose>
        Get a task: ID <result of Substring 2>

        The assignments are only user IDs, so you'd need to use Get User Profile(V2) to get the email address of the the assignment IDs.

        The only problem I have now is that users are getting notifications twice:
        - From the Flow
        - The default email they get someone commented on a task after they've posted a comment

        I haven't found a way to turn these default emails off.. argh!

         

        Edit:

        I've found that if you change the Outlook Group settings to "No email or events" the email goes straight into your Deleted Items.

         

        Even though Microsoft says:

        Any plan member comments after your comment

        You

        Email

         

        You can't turn this off.

  • ThreePointNZ's avatar
    ThreePointNZ
    Copper Contributor
    Yes, we really need to be able to create a task, assign it to a user in the organisation (even a guest user) and be able to notify only the assigned user(s) when a comment is added. It's useless when users have to manually check for comments. Being organised and placing information related to a task in one place is mandatory.

    Please add this!?
  • KarlInOz1's avatar
    KarlInOz1
    Copper Contributor
    I'm another one who finds it difficult to understand why this functionality would not be built in. We don't want the whole group spammed with email when a comment is made on any task but we do want those who have been assigned a task to be advised when a comment is made. I guess M$ doesn't have the technical expertise to build this in. Sad really. I wonder if maybe Elon Musk could assist them.
    • KarlInOz1's avatar
      KarlInOz1
      Copper Contributor

      This: 

      Every task has a single group email thread associated with it. When someone comments on a task in Planner, they are added as an individual to the “To” line of the associated email thread and will thereafter receive an email in their inbox whenever a comment is added to the task. 

      from here under the section How do task comments work? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/reset-who-receives-email-notifications-on-comments-for-a-specific-task-6f513d8d-37f2-4819-afaf-e930762f3d4c sounds kind of like the functionality we are looking for. And that is how it works. So, if a task is assigned to a person they (the assignee) need to make a comment on the task and then they will receive notifications about any further comments made on the task.

      But, what would be really good is, as soon as a person is assigned to a task they get notifications about new comments without having to make a comment themselves first.

      • Conradical07's avatar
        Conradical07
        Copper Contributor

        KarlInOz1 

         

        I agree.  Either of these two things would be preferred:

        1) Those assigned to the task are automatically subscribed to the comments.

        2) No one is automatically assigned to the tasks, but the owner can opt them in with an @ mention.

  • lukebeckman's avatar
    lukebeckman
    Copper Contributor
    Hi Santhosh, When a comment is made to a task in planner, is there a way such that ONLY the people to which the task is assigned get an email notification? I think the default is for the whole group to get notified.
    • SanthoshB1's avatar
      SanthoshB1
      Bronze Contributor

      lukebeckman It is not possible to notify only the task assigner. The task comments gets posted in the respective group mailbox and hence all users who subscribed for the notifications will receive it in their inbox. 

    • badgerjockey's avatar
      badgerjockey
      Copper Contributor

      I would also like to know this - for everyone in our group to receive notifications when any comment is made will result in being swamped in emails! It needs to be able to be tailored to just those people assigned in the task. lukebeckman 

      • Wbmch23's avatar
        Wbmch23
        Copper Contributor

        badgerjockey  a workaround is you have each assignee when they get the notification that a task has been assigned to them, immediately acknowledge this with a comment. they will then get each new comment on their assigned task and it wont go to the entire group. This goes with setting the "Recieve only replies to you" in the Outlook group settings for the task group.

  • ntmendonca's avatar
    ntmendonca
    Copper Contributor
    Interesting. I have the opposite problem. We can’t turn OFF email-blasts to everyone in the entire project (hundreds of people) whenever someone comments on a task. We ONLY want the task assignee to get the emails. How can we turn off emails from comments only (not other emails)
  • SanthoshB1's avatar
    SanthoshB1
    Bronze Contributor
    Right now, the only way is to subscribe for the Group mailbox, and you will receive the email alerts for all activities and comments in it.
      • SanthoshB1's avatar
        SanthoshB1
        Bronze Contributor

        Carlos Altamirano Go to Group mailbox settings and turn on notifications for all emails, this must be done by all users who need to know the notifications for all comments and changes. 

         

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