A new way to check off your to-dos—Tasks in Teams are coming soon!
Published Nov 04 2019 07:10 AM 162K Views
Microsoft

UPDATE 25th March 2020: The Teams integration should be available to everyone by the middle of the year. 

 

At Microsoft Ignite this year? Then you’ll have already heard the big news about Microsoft To Do and Microsoft TeamsMissed the announcement? We’ve got you coveredToday, we announced that you’ll soon be able to see your tasks from Planner and To Do in Teams. That’s right, one of your most requested integrations is on its way! 

 

We’ll now bring in your personal tasks from To Do and your team tasks from Planner into a single, comprehensive view in Teams. This will be coming very soon for Teams Technology Adoption Program (TAP) IT admins and will become generally available for all Microsoft customers at the beginning of 2020. 

 

You'll be able to access your tasks in two places in Teams: as an app in the left siderail and as a tab within individual teams. The app will show you all your tasks from To Do and Planner. The tab is for your team tasks, so links directly to Planner. You won’t be able to add a To Do tab to a channel but remember that any tasks that are assigned to you in Planner will show up in To Do. 

 

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Tasks in Teams sync with both To Do and Planner, so you’ll be able to access all your tasks within Teams. You can also add your personal tasks while you remember them within Teams and they’ll show up in your To Do app, ready to be checked off, with a satisfying “ding!” 

 

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Whenever you add a new Tasks tab to a team a corresponding list is created within Planner. And with our new picker, whichever list you last viewed will appear at the top, giving you fast access to your most-pressing team tasks.   

 

Our goal with Tasks in Teams is to give you one cohesive view of everything that needs to get done. We’re also hard at work bringing your tasks from Outlook and Office into Tasks in Teams too. Learn more about our overall tasks strategy here. 

 

Talking of integrations, have you already tried these great ways to bring your tasks into To Do, and now Teams 

  • OutlookTasks in Outlook sync to To Do, you can also flag your emails and see them in your Flagged email list. 
  • Microsoft LauncherThe native Tasks widget and To Do widget in Microsoft Launcher on Android sync with To Do. 
  • CortanaThe Lists section in your Cortana notebook syncs with To Do. You can also tell Cortana to add tasks to To Do. Of course, once you have Tasks in Teams set up, they’ll also show up there. 

Looking forward: 

  • Word, Excel, and PowerPoint: starting from January, you will be able to add a task using @mentions in Word. The same functionality will be available in Excel and PowerPoint later in 2020.  

We can’t wait for you to start using Tasks in Teams! Tell us what you think here or over on Twitter or Facebook 

88 Comments
Iron Contributor

sounds terrific, but what if you have on prem Exchange with no chance to move o365? how can we handle tasks?

Brass Contributor

will you be able to add a task based on a post? this seems like a natural integration so that you don't have to leave a post to make a task.

Steel Contributor

What about tasks created in the new Project for the Web? 

Copper Contributor

Are there any plans to add estimated and actual durations to tasks so we can use them for planning workloads?

Microsoft

@David Bargna Unfortunately, To Do is built on Exchange Online so can't work in On Prem. Outlook Tasks should work for you though?

Microsoft

@Kassidy Klink Hey, we'd love to see that too. It's something that we'll be working on.

Microsoft

@zenmunc Have you tried using tags e.g. #5mins in your task title? Then you can click on the tag and see all tasks from across your lists that will take 5 minutes. Does that work for you?

Microsoft

@Trutz Stephani That's something that we'd like to see in the future too. We don't have a timeframe for it yet though. 

Copper Contributor

@Polly Davidson maybe, I'll try it out. The ideal scenario would be for tasks to be assigned to users and appear on their schedule, occupying the time period allocated to the task. That way we can manage everything from within Teams :smile:

Brass Contributor

How about Microsoft ToDo and OneNote... ;) 

 

The traditional office version has a link to outlook tasks and therefore MS ToDo, but it would be important for my users (I train staff in 30 UK universities) to see that in the Windows 10 version.  Regards David 

Copper Contributor

"Tasks in Outlook sync to To Do, you can also flag your emails and see them in your Flagged email list. "

Which is awesome, but Flag is not available as a rule action server-side, so you can't automate this without using the Outlook client.

Brass Contributor

Coming back to Cassidy above: When I read "To Do integration in Teams coming soon", I was actually hoping it was about creating a personal task from a teams conversation (just like you flag an email in Outlook as "follow-up") - including a link to the conversation. I was a bit disappointed - yes, integration into teams is not too bad, but I personally think having a separate ToDo app is more than enough. The effort to create a task needs to go down though.
Flagging a conversation as follow-up plus allowing to create sub-tasks and due dates, as in Outlook, that would really close the loop and offer overall consistency. 

Brass Contributor

I agree with @Larsen Guenther , when users are requesting To-do integration with Teams, what they are really requesting is a way to flag and schedule followup For Teams conversation posts as Tasks. I think Microsoft missed the mark on this one.

Steel Contributor

@Polly Davidson  The problem with tags in To-Do is that you have to remember them. Unlike Yammer, already used tags don't pop up to select from, which makes it easy to misspell a tag or use other variations.

Are there details on adding the ability to turn a conversation/chat message into a task through follow-up flags like in Outlook or similar? You mention that you're working on this.

Silver Contributor

@Polly Davidson, looking forward to Tasks in Teams!

Copper Contributor
I don't see it in the screenshot, will "My Day" by one of the lists available in the integration?
Copper Contributor

No mention of Onenote here. Are we going to see ToDo integration there along with the rest of Office 365? As an academic being able to attach tasks in my research notes would be a gamechanger for my workflow.

Steel Contributor

@WilliamRichardson  OneNote 2016 already has integration with To-Do through the "Outlook Tasks" button in OneNote. When you use this to flag an entry in OneNote it creates a task in To-Do and when you check it off as completed in To-Do, it updates the status in OneNote. That means that any task you create through OneNote would show up in the Teams interface of your tasks as well.

Brass Contributor

@Kreera House.  .That's sort of true but at this stage, I have to tell participants of my courses that it should be viewed as a one-way send, not a two-way sync.   It feels like it's a two-way sync but ToDo is set up to use separate lists which are folders in Outlook Tasks  But if a task is moved from the default task folder in ToDo or Outlook, the link breaks.  It's still better than nothing but I'm hoping (and have been led to believe) that they are working on a direct link with ToDo.   

Steel Contributor

@David_Edinburgh  That's a valid point, but isn't it true for most O365 services, that if you move the source that's is located in another application, links to that source break?  I think it would make sense to train users to not move tasks to other folders in Outlook or To-Do if the source of the task is another application than Outlook or To-Do. 

 

I think a great feature would be if To-Do had a smart list for tasks that originate in OneNote similar to the "Assigned to me" and "Flagged Email" smart lists. What do you think?

Copper Contributor

There is one thing I am missing - will there be a full integration with Office Groups? What I mean is that I would like to great a tab in To-Do like I do in Teams. So if I create a group in To-Do, it automatically imports all the people assigned to that office group. For now, I have to separately invite people to each list.

So what I would like to have is once I create a list in To-Do and choose a particular office group, it automatically creates a task tab under a team in Teams 

Brass Contributor

@Kreera House.... you also make a valid point - moving often breaks links in Microsoft (this article talks of the complexity in another MS environment).

 

I guess my point is that the real power of To-Do comes from creating a structured hierarchy (with the use of accounts, groups, lists, tasks and steps) rather than a single root task list (which is not much different than the single red-flagged email list in Outlook).

 

I probably want to have my cake and eat it :smile: - In other words, it would be ideal if OneNote structure is created to map roles, programmes, projects, etc. and a similar structure can be mapped in my Next Action list in MS To-Do.

 

I would say however, that this is the closest (largely excellent) match to GTD I've seen from Microsoft daily PIM tools. 

Steel Contributor

@David_Edinburgh  To-Do already has the ability to be used with multiple accounts (albeit not on the same screen), and it does have lists (groups?) and steps for tasks you create in To-Do, so it's come a long way from being a single-root task list. It's only when items are synced from other services like OneNote or Planner, they go into a single location.

 

I don't actually understand what you mean with "it would be ideal if  OneNote structure is created to map roles, programmes, projects, etc. and a similar structure can be mapped in my Next Action list in MS To-Do."  Maybe I'm missing out on OneNote features, but I personally like the simplicity of To-Do and for more complex task management I use Planner. Which, in turn, lets me manage all tasks assigned to me in either place.

Brass Contributor

@Kreera House... sorry I didn't mean to confuse you.  I know To-Do has such a powerful hierarchy already (groups, lists, etc.), and I love it :hearteyes:.

 

But the power is lost if the tasks to be kept in the single root tasks folder, in order to maintain the link with OneNote.  However, its not a deal-breaker; there is still a working model.

Copper Contributor

Since Teams is already integrated into the Microsoft Graph, does this mean that ToDo Will be as well?

Copper Contributor
Hi @Polly_Davidson is there an update on exactly when this functionality will be released? I see you have this as "beginning of 2020" but I imagine it's on a release schedule now so what is the date please? Thank!
Copper Contributor

Hi! Anyone here have any idea when the integration with Teams be available? All i can find is "Early 2020"..We're kinda like in "Early 2020" now. Lol. Thank you! :) 

Copper Contributor

"Early 2020" ends on 31 december 2020...  be patient waiting for this feature

Brass Contributor

The Excel integration would be great.  I currently use Excel for my tasks as it's the only app that allows me to create customised fields and dropdowns for statuses, priorities, phases etc.

 

How about OneNote?  OneNote 2016 might have tasks but we use OneNote for Windows (the newer version?), which seems to lack a lot of features oddly and certainly doesn't have tasks or @mentions.

 

I'm also looking for a way to assign checklists items to individuals.  I can't see a way to do this in Planner.

 

All-in-one, this is great news.  Thanks.

Iron Contributor

@Polly Davidson , is there an update on this? Many of us are patiently waiting for this. Thank you!

Silver Contributor

@Jleebiker, I heard in a Microsoft O365 Champions Corner Live call that Tasks rolls out in April.

Iron Contributor

Thanks @Jeffrey Allen. Guess I'll that to my To-Do for April 01.  Wait a minute... ;)

Copper Contributor

A good Microsoft lie for the 1st april?Hummm....

Copper Contributor

@Jeffrey Allen it's a great news, it's one of the best solutions in whole O365 - definitely can improve efficiency.

 

However, what i'm missing the most in To-Do is lack of notifications other than due date. In general To-Do serves a purpose ONLY if you are using it on your own, definitely not a tool for teams.

 

What I would like Tasks in Teams to have are notifications that include:

- If had a task assigned, I would like to receive a notification

- If I assigned a task, I would like to receive a notification once a task has been completed

- If someone moved a due date in a task I assigned

- If someone assigned a task to me, I would like to to receive notification for example 24 hours prior to the deadline (possibility to set some rules)

 

Without notifications, tasks are useless.

 

Does anyone know if they will available in Tasks in Teams?

Silver Contributor

MS says early April and not specifically April 1st.

Copper Contributor

@Polly Davidson  would you be able to give clarity on when this feature will be available?  we are soon getting to mid 2020, thank you

Copper Contributor

@Polly Davidson when is Tasks in Teams due to be available ? Its almost a year since announced. Thanks 

Love the tight integration in Microsoft ecosystem

Copper Contributor

It is nearly end of March 2020 and this feature has not yet appeared.  Any news on its progress?

Copper Contributor

When is this being rolled out generally? I don't see it yet on my Teams client.

Copper Contributor

@Polly Davidson is there a known delivery date for this critical integration?

 

Thank you!

Microsoft

Hey all, the new date is around the middle of the year. Thanks for your patience here. 

Copper Contributor

@Polly Davidson 

That's really bad news. We've been waiting for it with big hopes, as it's a must have for us... so it was supposed to be within 2-3 months since announcement, but will be within 8-9 (at least), quite a delay.. 

Copper Contributor

@Polly Davidson Thank you for providing an update! 

Copper Contributor

the lack of regular comms on features that have been scheduled is a gap when communicating to the users who have requested this feature

Silver Contributor

@Polly Davidson, sorry to hear that it is postponed again.  This would be the perfect time to roll this out with so many remote workers.  It seems that Microsoft is falling down on the job during this worldwide crisis.  This would be the time for Microsoft to shine but I guess not.

Iron Contributor

Looking forward: 

  • Word, Excel, and PowerPoint: starting from January, you will be able to add a task using @mentions in Word. The same functionality will be available in Excel and PowerPoint later in 2020.  

Hey @Polly Davidson  I was wondering how can I test the assigning tasks in Word. I love the idea of this but have no idea if its working. Thanks for all of the great information!

Bronze Contributor

If there is an option for early testing (in the Fast Track or other program), please add my tenant to the list!!   :cool:

 

Brass Contributor

@Polly Davidson  Hi Polly, why is it being pushed back to the middle of the year? It is one of the most anticipated and most usable feature requests.

Silver Contributor

@Polly Davidson, Please if possible, move this forward as this is the perfect time for businesses to start using this feature in Teams!

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