Forum Discussion
Feature Request: Enhanced Text Field Support in Custom Fields for Premium Plans
Hello Microsoft Planner Team,
As an Engineering Manager at LinkedIn, I've recently started using Microsoft Planner Premium for my engineering team's sprint management. While the custom fields feature has been incredibly useful, I've encountered significant limitations with the "Text" field type that are impacting our workflow.
Current Issue: I created a custom field called "Scrum Notes" to capture detailed sprint-related information. However, when I enter multi-line text, it automatically converts to a single line, making it difficult to read and organize structured notes.
Feature Requests: I would like to request three enhancements for custom fields with "Text" type:
Multi-line Text Support: Enable newline characters (\n) to be preserved when entering text in custom fields. Currently, all text is collapsed into a single line, which severely limits readability for longer notes.
Expandable Text Preview: Display up to 300 characters in the Grid view with an "expand" or "show more" option when clicked. This would allow teams to see a preview without cluttering the view, while still being able to access the full content when needed.
Rich Text Formatting: Add support for basic text formatting (bold, italics, bullet points) within text-type custom fields, similar to the formatting available in the Comments section. This would significantly improve the organization and readability of notes, especially for technical documentation like scrum notes, technical decisions, or implementation details.
Use Case: Our team uses the "Scrum Notes" field to document:
Sprint planning decisions
Technical implementation notes
Blockers and dependencies
Action items from standups
Without multi-line and formatting support, these notes become difficult to parse, forcing us to use external documentation tools, which defeats the purpose of having centralized task information in Planner.
Impact: These enhancements would make Microsoft Planner significantly more powerful for engineering teams and other technical users who need to capture detailed, structured information directly within their project management tool.
I'd appreciate any feedback from the community on whether others are experiencing similar limitations, and if there are any workarounds currently available. I've also submitted this feedback through the in-app feedback mechanism.
Thank you for considering this enhancement!
1 Reply
I can confirm these limitations from my own experience. More flexible support for structured notes and custom fields would make Planner much more useful.
A few related enhancements would also help:
- A date field for notes: It would be useful to record the date of a meeting or update alongside notes linked to a specific task.
- Better support for comments: The Comments field is not a suitable replacement for structured notes: in my experience, comments cannot be edited, are difficult to keep organized, and cannot be searched.
- Custom fields like those in Jira: The ability to create and configure fields more freely would help teams adapt Planner to their workflows.
- Progress based on subtasks: It would be helpful if a task’s completion percentage could be calculated from its completed subtasks.
These additions would make it easier to keep task-related notes, updates, and progress information organized in Planner.
