Forum Discussion
How do I group the "My Tasks" view in Planner or develop a workaround?
Quick Background
I work on multiple teams that use multiple Planner plans. However, I find it overwhelming to try to manage my tasks across all of these plans/boards. Therefore, my workaround has been to create a private Planner plan and store my tasks -- or copies of tasks from other project-specific plans -- there.
Additionally, I have a lot of tasks that don't have a specific due date, but I still need some way of organizing and ordering them in a way that helps me determine what order to work on them. My solution for my private plan has been to create the following buckets and then manually sort them within buckets:
- Tasks With Due Dates
- Work In Progress - No Due Date
- Next - No Due Date
- Maybe/Eventually/Ideas
Problem
With the recent release of the new version of Planner (November 2024 in my organization), I was hoping I could get around relying on my private Planner plan to manage my day. Specifically, I was hoping to be able to keep tasks stored in the project-specific Planner plans that they are associated with and then view them in the new "My Tasks" view.
Of course, I can view all of my tasks in the "My Tasks" view. Additionally, I can filter my tasks by due date, priority, and progress; or I can sort them by title, plan, due date, priority, or progress. However, it doesn't appear as though there is any way to group them.
I have hundreds of tasks -- many of them without specific due dates -- so these filters do not provide enough granularity for me to actually plan my day/week/quarter using the "My Tasks" view. In fact, I'm not sure how this view would ever be useful to me in its current form.
I imagine the challenge in grouping them by bucket is that different plans use different buckets. I wonder if it will ever be possible to give individual users the ability to create buckets for the "My Tasks" view that don't necessarily have any relationship to the buckets in the plan the task is stored in.
Additionally, I realize that I could simply assign an arbitrary due date to all of my tasks and then sort them by due date; however, that solution doesn't seem ideal for at least the following reasons.
- As I said, many of my tasks don't have a hard due date. They just need to be done as soon as I can get to them. So, it isn't clear what date I would assign them. And if I happen to go over the arbitrary due date, I think I would have to adjust the due date of every other task that follows it.
- Assigning arbitrary due dates to all tasks makes dilutes the impact of due dates for tasks that really do have a hard deadline. Currently, I can quickly glance at a task card and determine if the task has a hard due deadline and, if so, when it is. If every task is assigned an arbitrary due date, I would need to go through additional steps to determine if the due date shown on the card is an actual hard deadline or not.
Request
Has anyone else experienced a similar issue? Have you figured out a solution or workaround? Again, at the end of the day, I would like to be able to view everything assigned to me across all plans in one place but be able to group them in a way that helps me determine which of the hundreds of tasks I need to focus on next -- ideally without giving them an arbitrary due date.
Thanks for your time and consideration!
2 Replies
The board view in My Tasks should be returning soon bradcannell - I think that will go a long way to solving your challenge.
Best regards,
Brian
Hey
Thank you for sharing your current process for managing tasks across multiple Planner plans. It’s clear that you’ve put considerable thought into creating a system that works for you. Here are a few suggestions and best practices that might help streamline your workflow:*Leverage the "Planner Hub" for Task Consolidation
The Planner Hub in Microsoft Planner provides an overview of all your tasks across plans. Use the "My Tasks" view to see tasks assigned to you from multiple boards, eliminating the need to copy tasks manually.
*Use To Do for Personal Task Management
Microsoft To Do integrates seamlessly with Planner. Tasks assigned to you in Planner automatically appear in To Do under the "Assigned to Me" section. You can also create personal tasks here and organize them using lists and priorities.
*Organize with Categories and Labels
Instead of duplicating tasks into a private plan, consider using color-coded labels in Planner to mark tasks based on priority, due dates, or categories like “Work In Progress” or “Next.” This ensures tasks remain linked to their original plans while staying organized.
*Buckets and Sorting
Your bucket system is excellent! If you want additional flexibility, you might:
Use custom priority levels or tags in To Do.
Sort tasks by importance or urgency directly in To Do or Planner.
*For Tasks Without Due DatesTo organize tasks without due dates, try:
Sorting by effort or priority.
Using Planner’s drag-and-drop feature to arrange tasks in the desired order within buckets.
