Forum Discussion
Planner Task Dependencies and Task Ordering
Interesting view although what does that leave us with in terms of a business case for Planner? Yes you can manage tasks, but ordering is a nightmare at the moment because it lacks some fundamental logical features that even the most mundane of projects would require. I.e. Add task After, Add task Before. And if it's just a task manager, why add buckets, collaboration, charts, etc. all features that a regular task list in SharePoint don't offer which make Planner more appealing.
Let's see where Microsoft takes us with Planner.
If you want something that is more waterfall-based, with dependencies and those kind of things from traditional project management - then use the Tasks list as I suggested as it will give you that functionality, or use Project Online.
The business case for Planner is about task management. I pitch it as both individual and team/group-based task tracking, not so much projects. While we can order tasks (simply dragging into different positions) we can simulate an order - it's not intended for that purpose.
Project management varies from person to person. You shouldn't try to make the tool fit your PM style - find the more suitable tool.
Loryan Strant - Have a look at the user voice ideas at https://planner.uservoice.com/search?filter=ideas&query=sort that was posted by SanthoshB1, you'll notice that a lot of people are trying to make the tool fit their needs. I guess this is because people are enthusiastic about the product but it doesn't quite match their traditional methodology.
Planner has a far more visually impactful UI and adds deeper levels of collaboration out-of-the-box which is what makes it appealing, but there are many flaws.
- Random reordering - e.g. a short while back if you changed the group by value between buckets, assigned to, etc. then back to buckets again the order that you had specified by dragging and dropping gets lost. I just checked this now and it seems to have been resolved. But this is what prompted this line of thinking in terms of dependencies.
- Labels go missing - yesterday all my labels had gone missing, today they're back again
- If you delete the conversation in Outlook it permanently breaks the Comments section for that particular task in Planner. (I've posted about this one too)
- If you have 50 tasks and you want to add a task at position 45, you can't, you have to add it at position 1 and then drag it all the way down. Note: The positioning here has nothing to do with waterfall or dependencies but might be solely for the purpose of aesthetics, readability. i.e. You have two related scrum style stories that would like to locate close to one and other in the first bucket.
Overall I'm still enthusiastic about the product especially in terms of collaboration, but when you're an Microsoft partner encouraging the use of Office 365 you're often left having to explain these evolutionary flaws to customers who just want a product that works.
- I get your point, but just because users want to change the product doesn't mean it's the right thing for it.
I can take my Nissan Pathfinder offroad, but it's not built for extreme four-wheel-driving up a mountain, regardless what modifications I make to it or ask Nissan to change it.
Microsoft provides three different solutions for project and task management (four if you include Tasks in Outlook, but we won't).
If people want waterfall-style project management then they should use the product that does it best for their requirements. :-)One might might not be able to take a Nissan Pathfinder on an extreme four-wheel-driving adventure up a mountain but it can be used for driving on the road; for daily tasks as well as having the flexibility to take on less extreme off-road adventures - 90% of the user needs?
It provides a lot of flexibility in the one vehicle, otherwise maybe 4 or 5 different vehicles are needed, and this saves a lot of money.
I appreciate that each tool has its place but the end result is that people are having to manually integrate the data from each tool. Why can't we use the computer systems to do this for us, can we not create a tool that meets 90% of a users needs?
I like the interface that Planner has - it is easy to use without having to spend ages learing how to use it. Good for mear mortals.
So if I had a choice I would use this interface to manage a task list in Sharepoint as well as any other task list.
