Forum Discussion
Planner Template (.plat) Files
I've been testing the new Planner capability that allows you to publish a Basic Plan as a template.
After publishing a plan as a template, I can see that Planner creates a .plat file in the SharePoint site associated with the Team (under the General channel document library). I also found the Microsoft documentation explaining that Planner templates are stored as .plat files in SharePoint.
While experimenting with this feature, I started looking at governance and reuse scenarios and found several areas that don't seem to be clearly documented.
I'm curious to know if anyone has explored these scenarios in more depth:
- How can a Planner template stored as a .plat file actually be reused outside of the standard Planner experience?
- Can a .plat file be moved to another Team / Microsoft 365 Group while remaining usable as a Planner template?
- Is it possible to build an organization-wide library or catalog of Planner templates using .plat files?
- Microsoft documentation mentions that .plat files can be edited outside of Planner, but I haven't found any documentation describing the format, supported tools, or editing procedure. Has anyone successfully modified a .plat file manually?
I'm interested in both documented guidance and real-world experience from anyone who has tested these scenarios.
1 Reply
You found that publishing a Basic plan creates a .plat file in the Team’s SharePoint library and want to know whether it can be moved, cataloged, or edited manually. The supported reuse boundary is Planner’s custom-template experience, not direct file manipulation. A published template is associated with the Microsoft 365 group selected during publishing, and access follows group membership. Members reuse it from Shared or Created by me. For another group, publish the source plan as a template to that group. If the source changes, update the plan and publish a new template version; existing plans are unaffected. Microsoft’s guidance lists the plan elements selectable during publishing, but it does not document the .plat schema, a supported editor, or a move-and-register workflow. Do not build a production catalog by relocating or editing those files. Use dedicated groups for broader audiences and treat the SharePoint artifact as Planner-managed data.
