Use planner without an O365 group

[John Francis]

Use Planner without an O365 Group? We have users who find value in Planner's ability to organize multiple small projects they are self-managing and they want to use Planner without the underlying O365 Group resources (or, I should say, our IT team wants them to be able to use Planner for individual work purposes, without them creating a mailbox (and GAL entry), SharePoint resource, security group, etc). If we want to use Planner as a personal task management tool, we would like to be able to do it without adding a Group. Is there any vision to enable the option of using Planner without provisioning a Group?

[#2]

Hi John -- thanks for the question. We've been hearing this request more and more as of late and it is something we're looking into. We hope to have more to share in the future as we work through the designs.

[#3]

Any update on this? We love the concept of planner, but do not require groups.  It is an added annoyance that creating a plan initiates a new group every time.

[#4]

The fact that Planner creates groups and clogs up the Address Book is a big annoyance - please just add a tick box when creating a plan to also create a Group or not!

[#5]

There are a number of similar requests on Uservoice as well:

https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525-microsoft-planner-feedback-forum/suggestions/19696669-cr...

We would really like to be able to create 'personal' planners without an underlying Groups.

[#6]

We have a similar need and would like to see this happen. 

[#7]

this can be done by creating a Plan when you are in a SharePoint online site. Click New, then Plan, it will make a new plan that is associated with the existing Group that is connected to the SPO site, you can then have multiple plans and use the SPO PLanner Web Part to display them on SPO Pages.

[#8]

So you essentially need to create your own Planner site in SharePoint as a centralized place for users to be able to go there and create their own individualized Plan, instead of them going to the Planner app. In essence you are creating your own Planner Hub to stand in for the actual Planner App. That is certainly not an ideal workaround. 

I believe Microsoft Teams also lets you created new Plans under a Team channel, so you could similarly create a Team as a source for users to go to and make individual Plans from there. 

[#9]

Good

[#10]

@Eray Chou This update is over two years old.... I can't find that this has been actioned (and can still only create within groups). Any updates?

[#11]

I don't believe it has been, but I have been using Microsoft ToDo and enjoying it, though the Kanban process is much more beneficial to my personal behavior.

You can create an Azure DevOps account for personal Kanban even though it's way overkill. Otherwise Trello in the meanwhile...

[#12]

I am also wanting this ability. I want to set up personal Planner boards without linking to a new or existing M365 group.

[#13]

I am also still waiting on this feature. I am not going to create an entire Team, Group, or Sharepoint site just to create my individual projects board. I'll use Trello instead.

[#14]

Is there any update about this?

[#15]

Any update on this? We are trying to prevent the sprawl of M365 groups and the related SharePoint sites. We would like people to be able to create a plan with any people they want, without the requirement of an M365 group for those people.

[#16]

Any updates??? Apparently the people of MS are not interested.

[#17]

Unfortunately it seems MS doesn't give a **bleep**.
We went back to Trello as it is perfect for both individuals and groups.

[#18]

~4 years later no update?

[#19]

I have been using Planner with different teams, using different plans, but Planner as it is structured today is not scalable, as it clutters the shared address book: everyone see group names related to plans, even if these plans are private.

Is there any plan to fix this? It's been 4 years now that the initial request has been made.

Or are we using Planner the wrong way?

Thanks in advance for your support.

[#20]

I've just red this is this live yet?

https://www.onmsft.com/news/new-roster-plans-in-microsoft-planner-will-no-longer-require-a-microsoft...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/planner/disable-roster-containers

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/planner/prerequisites-for-powershell