HLS Show Me How - Move Planner Across Teams
Published Sep 13 2018 04:51 PM 44.9K Views
Microsoft

The other day I was asked by a customer how they could move a plan from one Microsoft Team to another. Over time they wanted to be able to surface an existing Plan that resides in Team and then render it in another but there did not seem to be an easy way.

In this episode of Show Me How I demonstrate how to quickly leverage the Website tab to pull in an existing Planner Plan and add it quickly as a Tab within any given Team.

Learn more about Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Planner with the resources below.

 

29 Comments
Iron Contributor

Hi @Mike Gannotti, long time no talk. Hope you are well.

 

I'm glad you mentioned the big proviso to the hack above - that of permissions. If the link is to a public plan, then no great problem. But if it is to a private plan, it could get squishy. What's your recommendation for how to provide permissions to a non-public plan, and do you have a sense if the Planner product team is working on the ability to migrate a plan across Office 365 groups?

Microsoft

Absolutely @Michael Sampson. If a non public plan then you would need to set the permissions accordingly for the plan being shared. Not ideal but for now would at least give you access across one or more additional Teams. As to whether the Planner team is looking at ability to migrate across Groups/Teams as there is nothing published I really can't comment on it. If a customer of mine has such questions I could discuss with them what may or may not be being looked at as well as connect them to the team directly to discuss. But not at liberty to comment one way or another in this setting.

 

Bronze Contributor

@Michael Sampson I think there are many organizations that are hoping for plan templates, which might help with your concern about copying a plan across groups.  Last year at Ignite the Planner team mentioned they had that on their roadmap, so hopefully in a couple weeks at Ignite we'll get an update on their progress.   https://youtu.be/DKsyIj4vYwM?t=2227

Iron Contributor

Thanks for the answer @Mike Gannotti; here's hoping we see some more goodness in this space shortly. @Eric Davis - agreed. Templates would be great for Planner.

Microsoft

@Eric Davis and @Michael Sampson Here's looking forward to seeing what goodness the Planner team has in store for Ignite. I myself am also looking forward to any announcements they may have.

Copper Contributor

I want to use one plan as a template plan for several teams.  I then want to allow each of these teams to leverage off of this template and modify and create their own unique plan.  So, my question is, if I use this website method of adding a plan to a team and I then modify that plan within the team, will I also be modifying my template and anyone else who has linked to this plan will also see the changes.  If this is the case, then you have not solved my problem of being able to reuse and leverage off of a template plan - something that many project managers like to do.  I will test this out, but would appreciate any feedback here as well.  Thanks.  

Microsoft

@beverly the short answer is there is not really a template. You can share a single plan (not a template) across multiple Teams and if you change it in place will reflect changes elsewhere but also all Teams will see all of the plan in its entirety

Copper Contributor

Does Microsoft have this in their roadmap as a needed feature?  If so, when can we expect this?  I have a work around in mind, but it is somewhat ugly.

 

Microsoft

@Beverly23 The roadmap can be seen here. Other than what is published I would have no additional insight as I am not a member of the Product Group https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Planner 

Microsoft

@Beverly23 Looking through the list I see the copy plans but that is not the same as a template with connections from a plan generated back to the orginal. That is functionality within Project Online 

Copper Contributor

So, the capability to copy a planner plan from one team to another is due to be released in Q1?  Assuming that should be 2020 rather than 2019, correct?  I don't need connections from one plan to another.  I just want to have a basic plan that my team can copy and then modify for their purposes in their own team.  I don't need to be connected to their modifications.  Just don't want them to have to recreate the base plan every time.  Sounds like copy plan would provide this.

 

Microsoft

@Beverly23 If you go directly to the Planner Plan then click on the three dots indicate in image I am adding here you should see the Copy Plan option as I have highlighted 

planner.png

Copper Contributor

Yes, when I do that, I get this message:  

clipboard_image_0.png

 

Is there something I can have my admin do so that I can copy a plan from one team to another?  I can see how to copy a plan on the web and give it a new name, but there does not seem to be any way to pull the new plan into a new team.

Microsoft

@Beverly23  You could add easily by using the generic Website Tab and simply provide the URL. Be sure that the plan has the same permissions

Copper Contributor

The problem for us with the above is the connectivity.  This website trick works, but it is NOT copying and making a new plan for another team to use.  It is copying the same plan and it is linked back to the original, so anytime anyone on any of the teams makes an update or a change to any of the tasks within the original plan (or the new copied version of the plan for that matter) the updates appear everywhere that the plan now exists.  The copied plan is not independent of the original like what most of us are used to when we copy a file and rename it somewhere else to reuse. 

 

What would really help me / my team internally is having this ability to copy but to NOT have it linked back to the original.  I want to create a template and be able to copy it multiple times to different teams and have them function separate from the original, have the ability for each of them to be modified in the different environments, etc.   I think this is the common complaint from most people here and from what I have seen in most online forums.  Really surprised that this functionality doesn't exist as it seems like it would be a basic feature.

 

 

Microsoft

@Ryan_H615  I hear you and and those would be great suggestions for the Product Group. You can post those Microsoft User Voice so that the product team sees the request directly. You can post here https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525-microsoft-planner-feedback-forum and https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/ 

Copper Contributor

Done, just made a recommendation.  Thank you!

Microsoft

@Ryan_H615 Excellent! 

Copper Contributor

@Mike Gannotti I am a very new user to Planner and have been told to use this project management software by my company. Until now I have been using Asana. Asana has all the features your users have been asking for since they are a VERY important need in project and team management. These features are:

1. Template creation - This feature has been asked for for over 6 years by thousands of users?  Why does your company not listen?

2. Timeline structure on the template created - This way you can set a Start or End Date when coping a template and all the tasks inside the project will adjust based on the template timeline created. In Asana this was VERY useful for us to repeat templates for an event that will all have the same tasks to create and each task will be assigned to the same members. Then the due dates just alter themselves based on the Start or End Date supplied.

3. Reassign existing Plans (or project) to different teams - Why is this not added yet when it has been requested by your users on this forum for over 5 years or more from what I am seeing.

4. Grouping of Plans into Teams within the Planner sidebar - Right now I have more than a dozen Plans in 4 different teams. If it wasn't for the logo we added to each team it would be hard to distinguish what Plan goes with what Team.  Please add the ability to see your Teams in the side bar and the Plans within those Teams should be grouped.  If I click on a Team, then list just the Plans for that Team. Again, I am not sure why this would not be a feature already since this why we make separate Teams to begin with in the Teams app.

 

I have been a project manager for over 2 decades and your software is lacking the basic features we as Planners need when managing large teams with numerous Projects.  Please listen to your users, especially after the same requests have been asked for over and over and over again.

 

I just checked your Roadmap URL that you supplied and these important features Planners need and ask for are not even on your softwares radar after all this time. Why?

 

 

Microsoft

@toms-dejoriacenter Microsoft already provides all those enterprise features and more via Project Online which is a part of of the Microsoft 365 services. Planner is targeted at simple task based projects that constitute the bulk of what we see with customers doing less structured ad hoc efforts. For true project management we have our portfolio of Enterprise Project Management tools in the cloud to meet the kind of needs you are asking for. Different tools for different user bases https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/project/project-management-software?rtc=1 

 

Copper Contributor
Copper Contributor

I would have to say I agree with @Ryan_H615 above.  I would think you could put some functionality into planner to make it a bit more flexible and portable from team to team.  I will remain hopeful that some work is put into evolving the tool.

Microsoft

@Ryan_H615 while in terms of the customers at least I am regularly working with (I am not on the Product Team) I would respectfully disagree based on what they have been asking for that is one of the beautiful things about Microsoft Teams. If you love Asana, they have direct integration and same for many other solutions. If you see gaps that you see as essential you can always submit them directly to the product group at User Voice for Planner here https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525-microsoft-planner-feedback-forum 

Copper Contributor

Hi Mike, we did that many months ago at someone's suggestion from MS but those changes remain in queue and have yet to be updated or from what I can tell even considered.  I can see where maybe some might use Planner if they need something very, very basic, like maybe a solo-preneur who doesn't have a team and doesn't have repetitive tasks, but for us, Planner can't even build a template that you can use over and over so that's ultimately the deal killer for us.  From a PM software standpoint, it seems to me like that would be a very basic request and a very easy fix.  

 

Even talked to people at the local MS Store and they were stumped and couldn't help.  Everyone's suggestion is to just spend more $$ with MS.

Copper Contributor

hi Mike, I was able to make a full replication of the Planner by as you suggested without the Chrome etc. left menu content, e.g. COPY PLAN on the Planner web-version and direct to the TEAM you want.  However, when you open up the actual MS TEAM, the PLAN does not instantly show up.  The next step is NOT to open up the WEBSITE app, but to open up PLANNER when adding a plan and select a plan similar to the one "you already have".  At that time, the plan that you copied over (from the web-based Planner version) SHOWS UP!  When you select the plan, you will then be able to get a full replicate copy of a plan from another Teams (without the Chrome menu), you simply use the web-based Planner app as the intermediary copy-over.  I was successful with this approach.

Microsoft

@StephenSun Glad to hear that your approach worked! You should post a short video or post on that! 

Copper Contributor

Mike,

Your "workaround" does not move a Plan nor does it copy a Plan. It merely displays a Plan in a second location.

Meaning you are still working with the plan in its original location, meaning you need to keep that original Team around.

Copper Contributor

Hi @alanr , 

I recently had the same experience and believe some aspect of MS Teams has changed... again (Ugh) from my prior approach.  This became my new workaround.  First, I setup the "Recipient" Planner tab with a general structure a few columns.  Then, from either the desktop MS Teams app or the web-based version, I opened up each of the individual cards and "moved" each of the cards over to my target Planner tab (3 dot thing). The respective columns should show up also if you've created some column infrastructure to receive them.  When complete, need to just go back and delete the old.  One casualty are the labels associated with the cards, they didn't transfer offer so need to recreate or assign. This just happened like this past week so at least it works... for now. Good luck. S.

Copper Contributor

@StephenSun 

Here's what I'm now doing.

  1. If necessary, create the Channel I need in the Team to which I want to move the Plan
  2. Use the web version of Planner to copy the Plan from it's original Channel (and Team) to the "Group" (yes: in web Planner, it calls it "Group", not "Team"); giving it a name better than "Copy of <original Plan name>"
  3. Go to the Channel in the Teams application where I want the Plan, and use the add app function to add the "Tasks by Planner and To do" app, and the choose "Use an existing plan from this team" option. Select the copied (and potentially renamed) plan from the drop-down list.
  4. Go back to the original location for the Plan and delete it.

 

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‎Jul 12 2019 01:50 PM
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