We’re excited to wrap up the year with some major updates, including the rollout of the new Planner for the web, portfolios, and Project Manager agent, to name a few. Customer feedback continues to inform improvements to our product, so be sure to check out the updates we have in the works at the end of this article! 

A look back at Planner’s Microsoft Ignite announcements 

We recently announced several new capabilities at the Microsoft Ignite conference to make it easier for you to coordinate your projects. 

• Planner for the web: The new Planner for the web is now generally available, and it’s packed with features to help you manage all your work seamlessly across Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft Project, while leveraging the AI capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot for Planner (preview). To try out the new Planner for the web, you can go to planner.cloud.microsoft today. 

• Portfolios: With portfolios, users with a Planner and Project Plan 3 or Planner and Project Plan 5 license can easily group related plans, track progress from a high-level view, and organize tasks visually with the Roadmap view. This means you can keep an eye on all your plans in one place and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Read more at: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/plannerblog/manage-multiple-plans-effortlessly-with-the-new-portfolios-feature-in-microsoft-/4342145?previewMessage=true  
• Project Manager agent: With Project Manager agent, we’re bringing the power of AI directly into your plans. As your virtual project manager, Project Manager agent serves to streamline your workflow by handling tasks so you can focus on the big picture. Learn more about Project Manager Agent in our Ignite blog: Unleashing the power of agents in Microsoft Planner | Microsoft Community Hub 

App-powered tasks in public preview 

The app-powered tasks feature offers your organization more control over what users see when they open their tasks in the Planner app in Microsoft Teams. Instead of showing only the standard set of task fields, you can provide users with an experience tailored to the task at hand. That experience might be a workflow-specific set of fields or step-by-step guidance to walk the user through a workflow from beginning to end. To use this feature, your organization will integrate a Teams app with the task, which will enable app-powered task functionality.  

Learn more about the public preview of tailored task experiences with app-powered tasks or how to manage app-powered tasks in Planner for tailored task experiences.

Project Operations and Project Online plans in the new Planner 

You can now view Dynamics 365 Project Operations and Project Online plans in the My Plans section of Planner. This update makes it easier than ever to keep track of all your work in one convenient place. 

Bugs fixed in the new Planner 

We wanted to take a moment to thank you for your customer feedback, and this month we wanted to highlight two notable bug fixes that you helped us identify. Now, labels associated with tasks get transferred over when you copy a plan. Furthermore, you should expect date formats to match your locale settings. 

Coming soon 

Based on your valuable feedback, we’re rolling out new features to make your planning experience even better. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming soon: 

• Smart backgrounds: Get ready to customize your plans like never before! With smart backgrounds, you’ll be able to quickly spot the right plans. This feature was part of our legacy Planner experience, and we’re now enabling it for basic plans in the new Planner. 

• Board view for My Tasks: Board view in My Tasks offers a visual representation of your tasks similar to a kanban board, making it easier to track progress and manage your workload. See all your tasks at a glance and move them between columns to update their progress. Board view will be available in addition to the existing grid view in My Tasks in early 2025. 

• New Planner tab in Teams: Collaboration just got easier! With the new Planner tab, you can add any plan—basic or premium—directly to a Teams channel. This means you can work on shared projects seamlessly, right alongside your conversations. 

• Removing the default filter: We understand that changes can be challenging, especially when they affect your preferred way of working. When we released the new Planner, we introduced a default filter to hide completed tasks as a temporary measure to help manage clutter in existing plans. However, this made it difficult for many users to find their completed tasks. With the recent update that saves your filter settings, you now have more control over your task visibility - you no longer need to change the filter to match your preference each time you visit a plan. We are now removing the default filter to give you full control over your plans. 

• Additional column customization options: We’re currently rolling out the ability to reorder your Grid columns in the My Tasks and My Day views and are planning to launch the ability to hide columns after. Stay tuned for next month’s update on how you can use this feature to focus on the most important details of your plan.

Share your feedback 

Tell us your thoughts on the new Planner for the web by using the Feedback button in the top right corner of the app. We also encourage you to share any features you would like to see in the app by adding it to our Planner Feedback Portal. Your feedback helps inform our feature updates, and we look forward to hearing from you as you try Planner’s new and existing capabilities! 

Resources 

• Check out the Planner adoption page. 

• Sign up to receive future communication about Planner. 

• Check out the Microsoft 365 roadmap for feature descriptions and estimated release dates for Planner. 

• Watch Planner demos for inspiration on how to get the most out of the new Planner app in Microsoft Teams. 

• Watch the recording from September's What’s New and What’s Coming Next + AMA about the new Planner. 

• Visit the Planner help page to learn more about the capabilities in the new Planner.