Introducing suggested attachments in Microsoft Planner
Published Jul 13 2021 07:00 AM 15.7K Views
Steel Contributor

We’ve all had the frustrating experience of not being able to find a file that we want to attach to an email or share with a colleague. Microsoft Planner can help reduce that frustration with the introduction of suggested attachments. Now, when you want to add attachments to a task, Planner will show you a list of related files for you to select from. No more hunting through your folders, servers, or cloud storage to find the right file to attach.

 

Suggested attachments help keep the items your team needs to complete the task is in one place. Specifically, suggested attachments shows you a list of files that are based on the title and description of your plan and task, as well as the members assigned to the task and files that have been shared with you. We built this feature to save you time and reduce frustration.

 

Adding a suggested attachment to your task is easy:

 

  • Open Planner for the web from https://tasks.office.com.
  • Select the desired plan from your list of Favorites or Recent plans in the Planner hub.
  • Open a task.
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the task to find the Suggested attachments section.
  • Select Add next to the file you'd like to attach. (Pro tip: You can also select the three dots to the right of the file name (...) that appear on hover to open the file or copy a shareable link.

 

Once the file is attached to the task, you can choose other actions such as edit the text to display, remove the attachment, or select Show on card to add the file as a preview to the task. If you don't see the file you want to attach in the suggested attachments list, you can still add it by clicking on Add attachment in the task.

 

Suggested attachments.png

 

The suggested attachments feature is currently available in Planner for the web.

 

As always, we welcome your suggestions for making Planner an even better experience. Feel free to leave a comment below with your feedback or ideas. And keep checking our Tech Community Blog for the latest Planner updates.

11 Comments
Iron Contributor

Did anybody ask for this?

 

Meanwhile ten thousand of users on UserVoice are asking for a way to mention colleagues and better notification options.

When is it coming?

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Copper Contributor

I really like this feature.  I'd love it more if one of the default options was some of the MS Teams' channel files.  Usually, these are cross-linked as Sharepoint files, but only if I've synced that folder. 

Copper Contributor

And if we don't want other people monkeying around in our tasks, possibly adding documents that are incorrect? Or adding documents that aren't yet ready to be added? Please institute a way to disable this feature. As the owner of the task, I don't want this feature available to others.

Iron Contributor

I'm confused.  I don't understand. 

You're doing this, and meanwhile you can't address the Uservoice requests, including the most requested item from 2016 that was apparently "one of our top asks" and "high on our backlog" back in 2019 ? 

We can't edit comments, which should have been basic functionality from day one.  Really, @PlannerTeam, you can't figure out how to implement editing?

We can't do reoccuring tasks, despite the fact that it's the most requested Uservoice item, the request is 5 years old and it's been on the backlog (apparently) for at least 2 years?!   And it goes on. 

Do you guys ever bother checking uservoice?  What's the point then?   I've said this before and will say it again.  Do us all a favour, fire the entire planner team and start over.  Or go buy someone like ClickUp, Infinity or Notion and start over from there.  But for god's sake @PlannerTeam recognize that what you're doing now doesn't work.
August 2019 - "still high on our backlog"August 2019 - "still high on our backlog"

 

Iron Contributor

Bravo Microsoft, you removed all Uservoice spaces, now it is not possible anymore to see all the requests from the users from many years.

Don't count on me to write more feedback.

Iron Contributor

Sorry, but absolutly useless and just takes the space. Should each of users here, name you tens of refinements needed for Planner to be ever taken seriously, which are ignored for years?

Copper Contributor

Hi @PlannerTeam

Can it be disabled for the sake of security ?
It suggests irrelevant documents (randomly ?) which belongs to my colleagues (not even a member in that teams channel).
That suggested document can be business sensitive information, Personal data, HR/Financial data, etc.
Although it's a nice feature but it does not give value for us, rather more data loss and GDPR risk.
Thank you for your advice. 

Microsoft

Hi @Thanagit - please open a support case and we can help here.  The feature will only show documents that a person has access to anyway, but I appreciate your concerns in how these are presented.

 

Best regards,

 

Brian Smith

Copper Contributor

Please create an option to disable this immediately!  I work in healthcare and this is a huge compliance/security concern!  I'm not sure why you think this is helpful.  I have hundreds of employees using Planner and thousands of documents being loaded daily.  So why would you think you can program a "suggested" document to attach?  The suggestions has nothing to do with the task.  Please remove this or give us the option to remove it!

Copper Contributor
Copper Contributor

How do you disable this feature? This adds absolutely no value to my or my teams use of Planner.

If I need to attach a document to a card/task, I'll find it or ask the person/team who owns it to resend it.  I have never had the frustrating experience of not being able to find a file that we want to attach to an email or share with a colleague... ever.  I think this premise is fundamentally flawed and not the result of actual feedback from users.  And if you are think "well this could happen with big, enterprise level organisations" then I suggest that the said organisations use the right PMO tools for the job....

There is absolutely no need for the real estate at the bottom of a task to be consumed by inappropriate document suggestions.  The icons look like attached files just to make things even more confusing.  PLEASE remove this feature or at least allow it to be a selectable option.

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‎Jul 12 2021 02:32 PM
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