365 Wishes for Microsoft: Outlook Tasks, Planner, Teams and To-Do

Iron Contributor

The state of affairs with "Calendar" and "Tasks" apps has gotten fairly complicated enough that I'm finally having a very hard time understanding how they should all work together and which app you should use for what function.

 

The situation is complex enough that I'm not even sure which Techcommunity I should post this is, Planner? Teams? Outlook? I've opted just for O365, as 365 pretty much covers all the bases. Yes, I know about UserVoice, but as this touches upon several different applications; I honestly don't know which UserVoice I would use for this.

 

First, I love that Microsoft is trying to come up with new and ingenious ways of helping people to manage their time better; better tools have always been needed. I am also all for making the Teams app, the "face" of 365. I would love for it to be a one stop shop for all things 365 and Azure, but in order for that to happen, it needs certain functionalities AND not having every action tied to a 365 group.

 

Calendars and Tasks in 365 are NOT integrated well, there are still manual steps to take to "publish" tasks or no functionality to create a calendar, and all of that makes life even more complicated for end users than before. The freedom to "choose your own adventure" is fun, until you need to collaborate with many different people in a company. Which app should I use for this feature, what apps are other people using, should I use the same apps? 

 

So, here is my two cents: Make everything fully integrated, where the information should just flow, without any additional publishing or configuration, to all the other apps, just like magic. No additional configuration, no powershell scripts, nothing else for an end user to do other than post a task in whichever service they choose. Planner tasks should show up in To-Do, you should be able to assign a To-Do task to someone, every Team should have a calendar, the Teams app should have a calendar,  End users should have the ability to remove whichever calendars they don't want to see, and so on and so forth.

 

I work in IT, and I hate it when someone just says things should work like magic, BUT, for full disclosure, this post was MUCH longer, and while it had specific examples of how I think calendaring and tasks should all should work together, it was reaching 2000 words, and for a post, that is a bit much. I'm more than happy to put out a list of specific examples, but again, I don't want to publish a 20 page dissertation regarding 365 calendaring and task capabilities unless someone wants to read it.

2 Replies
I know at ignite last year or year before, they stated there goal was to make Planner, Outlook, to-do all interact and or sync with each other when it comes to Personal and Team task management. I didn't see much around Planner at the past ignite, so maybe we'll get something around this topic at Ignite this year. But I do know the vision is gearing towards these scenarios.
I read a blogpost from Microsoft not that long ago about them setting up a team, working towards the goal of consolidating these services, making them work together and find a story in the tasks universe! Also have some intel this is actually going on!

Adam