Email notifications sent to myself on every comment

Copper Contributor

I've read a lot about the notifications issues in Planner, which currently is the single obstacle preventing us to implement this tool in our organisation. But I'm not entirely sure I have the same issue as has been described in discussions here, and at the Uservoice Planner site.

 

This is what I'm experiencing:

  • The plan is created directly through the Planner web UI (as opposed to Teams/Android app)
  • "Send notifications about task assignment and task completion to the Plan's conversation feed." is disabled (default setting).
  • I am not subscribed to the resulting group that is created along with the plan (default setting).
  • The group or I receive no email notifications at all when a task is created or assigned.
  • When the first comment in a task is added, an email is sent from my address to the group. I see the email in my Sent items in Outlook.
  • For every successive comment added to the task, an email is sent, from my address, to my address, and to the group address. The subject is the task name, and all the previous comments are present in the email.
    This completely absurd behaviour is what prevents us from using Planner. I don't mind the emails to the group address, but that every person who adds a comment receives the same comment as an email more or less defeats the purpose of Microsoft Planner since we might as well just use email to track our tasks in that case!

Is this part of the entire email notifications problem, or a separate issue? Is there a temporary workaround?

36 Replies

Can you ensure that you have unchecked 'Send all group conversations and events to members inboxes'. You can find this option from Groups > Group settings > Edit Group. 


@Santhosh Balakrishnan wrote:

Can you ensure that you have unchecked 'Send all group conversations and events to members inboxes'. You can find this option from Groups > Group settings > Edit Group. 


Yes, it's unchecked (by default).

I'm not sure the Group is involved at all in this mess, the email always comes from myself and is sent to myself and/or to the group email.

Furthermore, if I check this setting, subscribe to the group, and email it - I now realise I don't get an email...

Nothing really appears to work as it should with the email notifications in Office 365 Group/Planner services.

I have exactly the same issue. Every member of the MS Team is automatically subscribed to "follow the plan in inbox" and they have received every comment posted on tasks that are not assigned to them as an email. If you stop following, the emails stop. No one receives emails when they are assigned to a task or when a task is completed.

I'd like for it to behave as this article describes

 

https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Get-email-about-your-tasks-and-plans-cce223d6-b0ae-43cf-a08...

 

"...you'll receive email notifications (in Conversations) when:

  • You create a plan.

  • You are added as a plan member.

  • Any plan member adds a comment to a task that you've commented on."

 

"Subscribe to the plan

If you want to receive all plan communication in email, you can subscribe to the plan.

When subscribed, you will receive an email message when:

  • A task is assigned (or reassigned) to any plan member.

  • A task is completed."

It was recently announced in Ignite that MSFT will introduce more controls for email notification. This will resolve the issue we re facing now. 

Thank you for the update!
Was there any date announced, even approximated, for the release of this feature?

IMHO, just adding controls is not enough. The default behaviour is the problem.

I can't believe this is still a thing. People are accidentally emailing the whole team with little 100 char comments. When is ignite this year because an overhaul is for sure needed

We are experiencing the same issue.

Is there a way to content disable email notifications in a plan or even in all of planner... which would be a nuclear option
I need more controls as well

Facing the same issue, happy 2 years!


@ruben k wrote:
I can't believe this is still a thing. People are accidentally emailing the whole team with little 100 char comments. When is ignite this year because an overhaul is for sure needed

 

It would be really hand if we could:

 

1. Switch off emails to sent to self for commenting (and kept off my default).

2. Complete the integration with Teams where the notification appears in the activity.

 

Right now I'm getting email blindness to emails from Planner because I'm so used to deleting them as they are my own messages. This has meant I've started missing things from other people which isn't ideal.

@paulwalsh Agree. I am not sure what purpose an email notification of one's own comment serves. The point in our organization switching to Teams was to reduce the number of unnecessary emails, and this always-on feature creates new, unnecessary emails.

@jaclynl, I agree completely.  The flood of emails and settings "all over the place" for Planner, Teams, and Outlook is making Teams an embarassing non-starter.  Teams gets the blame because it's the nexus of all our activity.  Is this the right place to voice concern? No idea.  I've spent enought time on this already and will see if emails from Planner can be blocked through mail flow or other draconian methods.

@Santhosh Balakrishnan 

Hello sir, I have been trying to add the comment to planner task but graph explorer shows success 204 response but I dont see the comment on the task. 

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57812011/cant-send-the-very-first-comment-to-planner-task-using-...

 

Links above explains the issue. I just wanted to if it is supported or not by graph api. 

More than a year since the first post and still no solution (that I can find).

 

I finally set up an Outlook rule that auto-trashes all email self-copies of my own replies on a task. Not elegant, but it works. I told the rest of my team and they immediately made the same rule in their own Outlook.

 

I may do the same for ALL task replies. I already get banner notifications of replies, and I'm in Teams a lot anyway, so I don't think I'll be missing anything. Easy to change if needed.

WOW this post was 3 years ago and Planner still operates the same way with no email settings per user. I hate how many emails I receive whenever a comment is added, even if my name has been removed from the card. I just want to receive an email when a card is assigned to me and that is all. I check Planner every day so don't need multiple emails everyday. Is this any closer to be fixed??

3 years and counting. Insane.