Planner notifications and time information in checklists

Copper Contributor

Has anyone else experienced issues with Planner task assignment not sending an email to the assigned person? We are getting the new group membership welcome email and I have tested both alerts and task notifications successfully to the same user in the SharePoint environment for our tenancy, but we do not receive Planner notifications. Is there a setting we need to adjust? Seems like most folks are complaining about too many emails...

15 Replies
A work mate was just telling the same this morning...and AFAIK, there is not a setting in Planner to start / stop receiving e-mails when a task is assigned...so I guess is intentional this new behaviour an probably caused by a bug introduced when adding new functionality to Planner
Just seeing this problem in one of my tenants, we are not receiving notifications when a task is assigned to a Planner user no matter if the underlaying Group is configure to have all the member suscribed or not...we are not event receiving notifications in the Group itself...only when a comment is added in the task...is that expected?

I am seeing the same issue in one of our tenants. May be some backend changes as I can able to see new UI for tasks. Assigned By and Created By are not available in this new UI. 

 

1.png

I have just opened a support ticket to see what's happening...even if this changes are the root of the problem, something is not working as expected in regards of beig notified when a task is assigned to a plan member
Please share us the outcome of the ticket.

Ok, I have just received the call from support people and there is a new setting for existing plans I was not aware off...this setting has to be check in order to receive notifications when a task is assigned to a planner member...see screenshot (sorry for the Spanish).

Planner_Subscription_Setting.PNG

 

 

Thanks. But I guess I have tried this today morning but have not received notifications. Let me try again.

At this time there is no way to send a notification to only the task assignee. As others have pointed out, there is now the option of posting task activity to the Group conversation timeline, then anyone who is subscribed to the Group/Plan will receive an email notifying them of the activity, however there is not currently a way for only the person the task is assigned to to be notified via email.

Well that makes it about useless. Once a task is assigned to a user, the whole team shouldn't have to get an email on updates :(

Is there a way to manage (turn on, turn off, etc.) notifications for Planner activity?  I'm getting way too many emails about simple changes made...

AFAIK, you have to configure it Plan by Plan. There is not a global setting to stop notifications at the user level for all the Plans you are subscribed to

For my own edification, this is exactly how it currently works:

 

If the notifications checkbox is NOT checked under "Edit Plan"

  • No message is ever sent, period

 

If the notifications checkbox is checked under "Edit Plan"

  • If the user is SUBSCRIBED to the Group
    • If a new task is created, comment added, or task is closed
      • EVERYONE gets a message in the Group inbox
      • Subscribed user get a message in their personal inbox
  • If the user is NOT SUBSCRIBED to the Group
    • If a new task is created, comment added, or task is closed
      • EVERYONE gets a message in the Group inbox
      • User does NOT get a message in their personal inbox

So if I have a Group/Plan with 10 members, and each person is assigned 10 tasks, either they'll never know about their tasks (unless they intentionally go to Planner), or everyone in the Group will get at minimum 200 messages (1 when any task is created and 1 when any task is completed). It's absolutely absurd.

 

The lack of progress on this seemingly simple, yet crucial function is completely disappointing. Actually, the lack of any significant updates in Planner since GA in June is disappointing, especially since just about every other area of Office 365 appears to be making updates at least quarterly.

 

"Email Notifications and Alert Options" on Planner Uservoice hasn't been updated since April of last year. Any bets on if we'll see this fixed before April of this year?

Agree 100%. I can't see recommending ANYONE subscribe to a group ever at this point.

Same feedback when creating calendar entries.