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Planner vs To-Do

Iron Contributor
Microsoft just released To-Do, a task app that will eventually replace Wunderlist. When should we use Planner and when should we use To-Do? Thanks for the help.
79 Replies

Can we also have some sort of integration / client web part component to surface the underlying list data on a SharePoint page (Modern / classic). We could create our own if the API to this is exposed.

Thanks for elaborating!

 

Your last sentence describes what we envision quite closely. As touched on in the presentation I shared above, we prototyped a "Planner" list in To-Do that has a copy of everything you see in your "My Tasks" view in Planner, with the respective plan/group it belongs to in the subheader (where a to-do's parent list is usually displayed).

This would accomplish having less lists overall, like you prefer, versus one list per plan as some have suggested. I like the #tag idea as well for grouping/sorting, but we would need to think the approach through more deeply. It works for projects named after #'s, of course, but not if you end up with tags like #firstnationalbankQ1advertisingcampaign 🙂

 

Timo

Hey Ayshwarya,

 

The Outlook Public REST API will accomplish just that, assuming you can figure out how to get the appropriate tokens needed to push and pull data. Though we use an internal version, this is essentially the same API we use to store to-dos in Exchange Online and thus power the Outlook Tasks integration.

 

Best,

Timo

Hi Timo, 

 

Thanks for the update related to integrating Planner into To Do. 

Has that functionality yet been released? 

 

With thanks!
Bud

Yep. To-Do is tool for individuals and planner is tool for groups . But group is sum of individuals. Have to minimize double "markings". True?

Some kind of integration is needed. (May to take third tool in use - put those in "flow"? - if nn (at)company.com mentioned in planner then make todo to nn(at)company.com)

Hey Bud,

 

Not yet. Both product teams are investigating some infrastructural changes that would enable a more straightforward and deeper integration down the line. We'll keep you posted.

 

Timo

If your company doesn't enable To-Do, you can still try it out if you have a personal Microsoft account. Just go to www.todo.microsoft.com and login with your personal MS account. You can also download the app from the Microsoft Store for your PC or phone.

MS task are like Google chat apps. 🙂

Hi Timo,

 

We are really keen to know when this Planner and ToDo integration will be available.  Is there somewhere where we can vote for these roadmap functionality items?

 

Thanks,
Rich

 

You ar absolutely right. It would be awesome the planned tasks assigned to us could appear on our to do lists automatically. 

Hi Timo,

 

Can you imagine an additional integration of Planner and Outlook Calendar, at least one way? I mean, all the Planner tasks allocated to me and that have a deadline to be shown in a single calendar? the two-ways interaction may be streamlined if any "deadline" in this Planner calendar simply brings you to Planner landing site online, nothing complicated and it would be enough, they are for the Team/Group and just posted there, so why would we need to modify them from Outlook interface, right?

 

The "Planner" calendar that I envisage would contain all tasks allocated to you that have a deadline across the different plans, in which you can select which plans to show/hide maybe. In fact, now I realized that could be properly called "Planner hub calendar" 🙂 so plans you have NOW favourited in your Hub would show up, so then you can centralize the show/hide control in the planner app site rather than in Outlook Calendar.

 

This would be a great way to avoid the clutter of Groups calendars (now we have one every time we set an MS  Team)  in "My calendars" folder. I don't use them since there are not so many appointments in one project/team to justify the display of an entire calendar, especially because these appointments already show up in my personal calendar when I'm invited to a meeting, so it makes sense that they are simply included there and not to show dozens of calendars (yes, I'm that busy!... X-) 

 

Thanks for considering

Javier

 

PS: Desktop version of Planner soon please! either standing alone or integrated with the existing ToDo one! when you do this I will go for Windows 10 🙂 🙂

By the way, I'm missing so much to have the possibility of adding items to one specific task in TODO app, so that you can see the breakdown and have an easy way to distinguish between typical small task standing alone 15 min and Big tasks that contain such step by step or minor component like in Wunderlist 

Hi Javier,

 

I don't work on Planner so while I like your idea, I can't comment on whether or not something like that is planned or not 🙂

What I can tell you is that we are already working on the subtask feature you mention below for breaking bigger tasks in To-Do down into smaller chunks and hope to release it very soon 🙂

 

Cheers,

Timo 

While Planner = Group; To-Do = Personal. Believe it or not, Group planning involves people, and their contribution to the group becomes a personal task. Which I'd like to have show up in Outlook Tasks and my To-Do app.

I could JUST use Microsoft 365 without the add ins if to-do and Planner my tasks would just talk to each other! Please!

Hi

 

Here is where you can vote for this integration between Outlook Tasks and Planner.

 

https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525-microsoft-planner-feedback-forum/suggestions/11037114-in...

 

Rich

We solved it by each having a personal Planner-plan. That way everything collates in your Planner-hub.
Do you see any drawbacks with such a way-of-working?

I'm pretty sure that when you create a Plan in Planner, it also creates an Office 365 group to go along with it since they are meant to be used by multiple people.  If you have each person create their own plan, you just going to end up with tons of Groups that don't serve any real purpose.

True. But comparing trying to make people having two different places to go for their tasks, that's minor. Since we get one group for each project the list is quite substansiall anyway, everybody just works from their list of Favorites.

Thank you for the suggestion.  That is a good approach however I am wanting to use To-Do because it works PERFECTLY with David Allen's "Getting Things Done" method.  If I could pull the next actions from Planner as my project listing and organizer into the appropriate list in To-Do I am golden.  Also really like the ease of use of Microsoft To-Do.  Found something interesting that even the Microsoft team hasn't mentioned anywhere in this forum.   Here is a link to a demo that shows plans to integrate the two and it is perfect!  The entire video has some good content but if you go to 33:33 they explain integration between Planner and To-Do with new code just for demo but meant to show what is coming.  Not sure why this link isn't clickable but if you copy and paste is will work.  This is EXACTLY what I need for "Getting Things Done"  I can pick and choose from My Tasks in Planner what I want to do today with my other personal tasks for the day. 

 

https://youtu.be/DKsyIj4vYwM

 

Please Microsoft!!  This is perfect - simple and useful.

 

E.

Led by the Microsoft Planner and Microsoft To-Do product teams, learn about the latest updates and features to Office 365 task ecosystem including integration across commonly used workloads, such as, Outlook and Microsoft Teams. This session includes demos of all the different applications where ...
It is the grouping of the tasks that I like in To-Do. I believe in Planner it is one large list of My Tasks.

E.