Renaming the Planner app in Teams to Tasks - What will be effect if ToDo is not enabled in Tenant?

[PhilRiceUoS]

With the announcement of "Renaming the Planner app in Teams to Tasks" and providing an integrated experience with Todo I have been trying to find out if there will be any impact in our tenant as we have planner turned on and it is used by a number of teams but ToDo is NOT enabled in the tenant. This is because (im told) that Todo relies on Exchange Online and we currently have that disabled due to the migration of Exchange On Premise being an ongoing project.

My concern is that the integration of the ToDo functionality with Planner (to be renamed Tasks), might cause the planner tab in teams to stop working correctly if ToDo is not enabled. Can anyone confirm if this is or isnt the case? Also if Todo does require exchange online to be enabled?

Whilst I personally welcome this integration functionality wise we are not in a position to change things quickly so I need to find out what impact it may have.

[#2]

@PhilRiceUoS Hello Philip, as far as I understand you're all good as it's "just" a name change in Teams.

"This name change applies only to the Planner app in Teams. All other Planner clients and To Do clients will keep their existing names, and users can continue to use those clients to manage tasks just as they do today."

"Users will see personal tasks powered by To Do (which also powers Outlook tasks) and team tasks powered by Planner".

As for the To Do question: One of the following versions of Exchange Online is needed for Microsoft To Do to be able to sync user data:

Exchange Online (Plan 1)

Exchange Online (Plan 2)

Exchange Essentials

Exchange Online Kiosk

Exchange Online Plan 1

Exchange Online POP

Exchange Online (P1)

[#3]

@ChristianBergstrom 

Thanks for the reply

Im under the impression it is more than just a name change though (although there is that of course - but that is manageable to update people) - there is new functionality coming, hence my concern:

"The Tasks app brings a cohesive task management experience to Microsoft Teams, integrating personal tasks powered by To Do and team tasks powered by Planner in one place."

Taken from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/manage-tasks-app

So there is clearly a change in the way it works and with Todo being integrated into the planner teams app there might well be some dependency , but ive been unable to find out for sure. Also, it isnt something I can test in advance so Im concerned it has the potential to break functionality for our users that currently use planner in teams. We currently cannot turn on Exchange Online for user and therefore cannot turn on ToDo app for them (as per your confirmation, it requires Exchange Online)

[#4]

@PhilRiceUoS Hello again, well if you're not sure I suggest you contact Microsoft for an official answer.

I'm still pretty sure though that your existing scenario isn't affected as the highlighted quote says "personal tasks powered by To Do and team tasks powered by Planner". They're getting integrated into one app, but still team tasks are powered by Planner.

"Tasks is available as an app and as a tab in a channel. Keep in mind that the app comprises both personal tasks from To Do and team tasks from Planner whereas the tab shows only team tasks."

[#5]

@ChristianBergstrom 

You might well be right but sometimes pays to be paranoid!

Im just thinking that Teams tabs very much seem to work by pulling in the external app in almost a iFrame like fashion (I know its not iFrame of course) and if the new Tasks experience needs to pul in data from both planner and Todo in order to render the tab view it might break if one is not available - it might not of course and simply not show the personal tasks elements but not being able to test is an issue. I might have to explore some possible emergency actions in case it does.