The new Microsoft Planner: What’s New and What’s Coming Next + AMA

Dear Microsoft Planner Team,

for the first time, I am posting in the Tech Community due to several issues our employees are facing with Microsoft Planner. These issues have become significant enough that some are considering leaving the platform, even though we are already using the Planner Plan 1 license.

While we truly appreciate the recent focus on Planner and the progress made, there are several key features that we believe need attention to further enhance the user experience and prevent users from wanting to switch.

I would greatly appreciate your insights on the following:

1. Task and Plan Recovery: It is currently not possible to recover a task or plan that was accidentally deleted. Since our tasks contain critical information, is there a plan to introduce a recovery option?

2. Assigning Checklist Items: When will it be possible to assign individual checklist items to specific users?

3. Granular Search: It would be very useful to have a search feature within the plan that not only searches task names but also their content.

4. Task History: With the Plan 3 license, we have access to the task history. Will this feature be added to Plan 1 or free licenses in the future? Why is this standard feature only available with a $30/month license?

5. Better Teams-Chat Integration: When trying to start a conversation within a Premium Plan task in the Planner Teams app, users are redirected to the Teams Channel Planner tab, where the task is reopened. However, they then need to click the "Task Conversation" button again to finally open the conversation. Can this conversation window be more seamlessly integrated into the Planner Teams app? It is confusing for our users, as they do not want to constantly switch between the Teams Channel Planner tab and the new Teams Planner app.

6. @Mentioning in Basic Plans: In the Premium plans, @mentioning is a valuable feature. However, in Basic plans, the comment functionality feels incomplete without this. Additionally, the current notification system is problematic—only users who have previously commented receive future notifications. This makes it difficult for the entire team to stay informed. Is there an ETA for bringing @mentioning to Basic plans?

7. Storage Location of Uploaded Files: Is there a more organized solution for files uploaded to tasks in Planner so they don't land in the root directory of the SharePoint library, but rather in a "Planner Files" folder or something more granular? This would greatly improve file management.

8. Planner Web App: When will the new Planner app be available as a web version?

We want to continue using Microsoft Planner, but these features are essential for making the platform viable for us in the long term.

I would really appreciate it if you could address these topics briefly.

Thank you!

Markus