Hello Brian,
Thanks for responding so quickly.
It's disappointing to hear there are no plans for more labels. Planner is very useful in our organization. I hope plans for more labels is added to Microsoft's ToDo list. The sooner the better! Here's why...
We create buckets for similar components of a company project. Each bucket/component has virtually the same steps. In the first bucket, we create tasks that represent each of those steps. Each step has one of the color-coded labels and a simple numbered descriptor text. We order them in the bucket according to the practical execution of the steps. Now, there is a prototype set of tasks we copy to the rest of the buckets. Our project board is ready and work begins.
Because the labels are colorized it's easy to immediately grasp the state of completion for each bucket/component looking left and right, because the next step ticks to the top when the previous step is completed. The simple visual cue is very effective in working through a project that has dozens of components with many steps. Most importantly, that simple visual cue is so easy to pick up on, new people have a very short learning curve. They are up and running in no time. We have wrapped up planners with hundreds of tasks in mere weeks.
Here's the problem...
Some of our planners are beginning to have more than twenty-five steps! We've tried many workarounds, including doubling up steps or cutting projects into chunks. Fixes to our process have not worked. There has been confusion and loss of productivity.
The simplest solution is to have more labels. Everyone likes using Planner. I sincerely hope that more can be added.
Thanks for your time.
Michael
