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

Yes this is very annoying. Disappointing to see that nothing have changed yet.

I've started creating plans but refuse to share them with my colleagues as I do not want to bother them with tons of email notifications. And as mentioned in 2017, this Planner's purpose (in our case) is to stop relying on email chains and have a better platform to interact and work together on a task. @tarcisioal 

@Elias Larsson has anyone heard when they are going to fix this poor user experience?

@stephen_b78 This doesn't appear to affect us any more. I'm not sure if there was a fix implemented at some point, but comments are now only sent to the group address. I have a suspicion that tasks that were created when this setting was active back in 2017 still exhibit this spammy behaviour, but new tasks behave a little better.

@Elias Larsson that's great news for you :) Unfortunately I still get emails when I comment on new or old cards... 

@stephen_b78 There's a setting on the group that might need some playing with too (Manage group email), you can reach it from OWA:

https://kb.mc3.edu/article/office-365-outlook-web-access-owa-managing-group-settings-1377.html

You can add the notification email domain to your blocked senders list

I'm glad I read this post, I WILL NOT be recommending MS Planner to my organization at this time. It saddens to have to make this choice, the product is so close to meeting our needs.

I just started using MS Teams and Planner 2 Weeks ago, and Now found this thread. I am still experiencing the same issue. How can this be unfixed after 3 years? It's such a stupid setting, seriously. 

Pleas fix this soon, it makes working with teams a PITA ...

Same here. I just starting using Planer a few weeks ago, actually all the 365 apps. but now i an starting to regret it if the service is this bad. I also hate the fact that you cannot delete or edit comments like you can in most other similar apps, f.x. Trello. 

FIX THIS!!...

I am also experiencing other weird issues, that should influence anyones decision when thinking of chosing MS Teams... against teams!
The most annoying issue:
Members of a team, that are assignee of a task, do not get notifications when someone comments on that task. Microsofts answer to this: In order to get notifications, you have to comment on a task first. After you commented the task, you are subscribed to the tasks comments. Great, so our workflow seriously is:

  • I create a task, assign it to another member
  • This member get a notification about me assigning a task to him/her
  • This member then goes to that task, and writes a comment "activating my subscription"

It works, but it's painfully stupid.

 

It's really weird, how something as fundamental as "notifications" can be so full of counter intuitive features. Why is there no rich setting area about notifications, but only this superficial one? In a PM Tool like this, I would expect to be able to customize my notifications to my exact needs. It is kind of ridiculous.

 

Please work on this ASAP ..

 

@Elias Larsson I know it doesn't fix all the issues, but the best solution I can think for receiving emails for your own comments is to create a rule in Outlook. It should be pretty simple because the email is sent from comment author's email. If the email is from my email address and contains "Comments on Task" in the subject, then it is moved to a folder. You could also just have the message deleted, marked as read, etc. I think this will make it a little more bearable until they [hopefully] fix the issue

Another pitifully designed tool. 5 years later still nobody cares at Microsoft. There are far better tools on the market!

@Santhosh Balakrishnan 

 

As afr as I can see, there isn't this setting option in 'Group Settings'. 

 

5 Years later, and the issue still exist ! No chance to turn off notifications on comments. Microsoft is ridiculous at this point, you can see from the comment that they promised to fix this on 2017. This company is a joke !

Almost 6 years now. Plan settings still force notification emails to the group when a comment is made on a task... baffling.

 

Thankfully Outlook has the "email rules" so I can get rid of them easily, I guess.

6 years on and still no option to not be notified of my own comments. 

In the past it took over 10 years for Microsoft to fix a bug in Notepad...

 

...so be patient: bug fixing is not their priority, changing menu colors is much more important for them!