SOLVED

Not receiving Planner comments in Outlook inbox

Iron Contributor

I used to receive all task comments in my Outlook inbox but this functionality seems to be broken. Now I might receive 1 out of 10 comments in my inbox, or none at all some days. I would like to at least receive a desktop notification when a new message arrives in the Planner group.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

61 Replies

@Jason DrewFor months I've been trying to figure out why I'm not receiving notifications for any of the tasks I'm raising. I've only just found out that it's been broken in Teams deliberately after reading this thread!

 

Having to put a comment in a task to receive notifications is super dumb as people who have been assigned to the task but haven't yet commented miss important updates. Please revert the change back so that everyone who is assigned to a task receives notifications by default as per Jason Drew's suggestion.

As anyone figured any kind of work around for this problem? Maybe utilizing MS flow?

@chtran 

 

Can we get an update on the fix to make it where the person the task is assigned to gets notified of all comments on their task by default? 

@dquarrell Seems like it should be a no-brainer.

it seems we're speaking a deep, dark, abyss. someone at microsoft, hello!?

@lisatkI agree with you a 100%. I don't think they even mentioned changes in planner in this year's ignite, though I could be wrong about that and maybe I missed it. 

Thanks to all for the input and suggestions, it's very appreciated! We definitely hear the feedback that this experience needs to be improved, specifically those assigned to a task should be updated on comments to their tasks.

 

Unfortunately I don't have an update to share at this time, but I can say this is something our team is continuing to work on and it's not something we've forgotten about. As soon as I have an update, I'll make sure to update this thread.

@chtran Great to hear! Appreciate the update and hope to see another one soon :)

@Jason Drew  This is so frustrating, I have been trying to implement MS teams and planner in my department in the past weeks and this pretty much renders all my effort futile.

@jdrapialt Teams has truly become an amazing tool, I highly recommend it. Planner still has a long way to go however. I just read all task comments through Outlook since we are just a small team for the time being. I can see how this would be unfeasible for a large team though. 

@chtran Hi Charlie and thanks for this update. I know you said it is ongoing but do you have a view on whether this is something that will take weeks, a few months, 6 months?  The frustration is that it would seem to be something that can be quickly fixed?  Just give users the option regarding what updates to receive and how?

 

Our plan is to roll out planner across our whole organisation but we are reticent to do so until this is fixed because colleagues are screaming out for us to move to slack, asana or trello and we are having to appease them on a promise it will get fixed soon.

 

If you look at the uservoice forum there are dozen of requests about this issue which, if you merged them, would be the No 1 request by some way I suspect.

 

The whole development of teams etc is great but to use an analogy, it feels like you are designing a car and busy designing ultra cool luxury gadgets for it rather than ensuring that the gear box works properly!

@chtran how difficult could be to add the @function, this will definitively solve the issue, of course is better to send the notification to the ones involved in the task, but doing a manual work of tagging people it is fine and in Team Desktop is working, so why don't just replicate in planner the same for the comments?, please urgent support adoption is at risk at this point due this functionality, currently I need to send emails to check on progress, so make not sense to use planner if I need to use outlook.

Any update and even better prompt solution would be appreciated.

@SDBUK I can't believe I posted this in April and there is still no sign of activity on Microsoft's end. I don't see why they bother having these apps at all if they aren't concerned with having basic usable functionality. 

@Jason DrewI know what you mean. I'm beyond disappointed by the lack of interest from Microsoft in resolving this. This is one of the most basic things that one would expect with a task management tool, and 1 year no later no fix, no workaround in Flow or whatever it is called now, just the usual " the dev team is looking at it" line. 

 

:unamused::sad::cry:

@chtran 

The comment notification emails should work like this:
The notifications  should be tied to a "follow task" feature with the following properties.
- If you are assigned to the task, you automatically "follow" the task.
- Users may "follow" or "unfollow" any task, even ones they aren't assigned to.
- A message in the comments will automatically trigger when someone "follows" or "unfollows" a task

There should also be email notifications to anyone who is "@ed" in a comment post.
Anyone who is "@ed" should be automatically assigned to "follow" the task.

However, the email sent should have an "unfollow" task option tied into it.

I believe this would cover all issues.

Side note:
My department is looking to using teams/planner for our projects. However, in testing, we are also not receiving email notifications from comments on tasks, even after commenting on the tasks. So something is broken, either with our settings or with planner itself.

@wlyter 

I agree with your suggestions.

I am really getting very despondent with the lack of feedback from MS on this.  If I ignored my customers in this way I'd get fired.

MS's twitter teams are quick as a flash to retweet good news stories and respond to people praising the products so we know that there are people who are still alive in the relevant teams at MS.  It seems that they are on a sales hunt and are ignoring the demands of existing customers.  I note also that Jo Parkhurst is leaving MS so who is left looking after planner?

 

If someone from MS is reading this, just tell us the truth in 30 seconds so we all know where we stand.

Since this functionality has not been added to Planner since the issue was raised 9 months ago we're going to be moving away from that system to something that actually works.

I am not very familiar with how this community works. Does MS regularly review comments made here?

In any case, there is a UserVoice request for this function:
https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525-microsoft-planner-feedback-forum/suggestions/36544018-e-...

We should all go comment and vote.

@Matthew Jarsky  Just did!

thank you.