Strategic Missing Capabilities in the new Microsoft Planner (Enterprise Perspective)
The Present State of Microsoft Planner’s Vision Enterprises want one coherent work-management layer in Microsoft 365 Microsoft’s ambition is to merge To Do, Planner, and Project for the Web into a single platform with Copilot, Goals, unified List/Board/Timeline views, and templates The direction is sound: reduce fragmentation and tool sprawl, standardize data, and give leaders a clean and solid portfolio picture while teams execute in familiar interfaces. In an environment where all employees have access to the same tool, are already included in the resource pool and integration options are basically unlimited, this is a step, that everyone was looking forward to. Nonetheless, the quip that “Microsoft abandoned MS Project 20 years ago” is a joke, but it reflects a real anxiety: if the new Planner displaces familiar scheduling experiences without enterprise-grade controls, PMOs will feel left alone again and disengage, in presence of abundant alternatives. Planner will not replace Microsoft Project, Primavera, or other detailled scheduling tools; those remain essential for deep dependencies, resource leveling, and baselining. Planner’s highest-value role is the management and aggregation layer above them: align goals, normalize metadata, and expose cross-program status. Simplicity matters, but simplicity cannot mean missing capability. If essential functions are absent, governance, traceability, and portfolio visibility suffer, and organizations turn to external tools. Following is a list of core functionality that is currently missing and was needed about a month ago. Current Structural Gaps Date logic too rigid for management use No independent target/due date field; planning often hinges on Start/Finish + Duration, which limits top-down milestone control Custom fields capped at 10 per plan Insufficient for enterprise metadata models and standardized portfolio reporting Maximum task duration of 1,250 days Constricts representation of multi-year initiatives and capital programs No enterprise-grade audit trail Lacks comprehensive, exportable change logs with retention controls for compliance Flat responsibility model Multiple assignees exist, but no roles such as Owner, Reviewer, Approver; no RACI support Insufficient hierarchy and dependencies for roll-ups Summary/sub-tasks exist, but cross-plan links and robust multi-plan aggregation are weak Group-based permissions only Sharing tied to M365 Groups/Teams; no fine-grained task- or field-level permissions; no simple view-only for externals Custom fields lack hyperlink behavior No URL field type; links in text fields are often not clickable for seamless navigation Inconsistent text capture and formatting Notes lack reliable rich-text structure; long entries are hard to read No page breaks or robust formatting for long descriptions Executive-level narratives and governance documentation become unwieldy Limited standardization across plans No global library for reusable custom fields, bucket structures, or templates at tenant/portfolio level Required Enhancements for Enterprise Readiness Flexible date logic Allow target/due dates independent of Start/Finish; add constraints, buffers, alerts, and escalation rules Expanded metadata framework Raise the custom-field limit; add field types (URL, Person, Multi-select), required fields, validation rules, and global field templates Enterprise auditability Provide full change history with export, retention policies, filters by field/user, and API access Role-aware assignments (RACI) Support roles (Owner, Doer, Reviewer, Approver), secondary ownership, and role-based views in people and reports Portfolio-grade structure Enable cross-plan dependencies, milestone roll-ups, program-level summaries, consolidated capacity and risk views Granular access control Introduce view-only sharing, external access without group membership, and task/field-level ACLs to protect sensitive data Hyperlink-enabled fields Add a URL type and clickable rendering in text fields, with previews and allow-lists for approved domains Robust editor for management communication Paragraphs, lists, headings, tables, code/quote blocks, and clean print/PDF output for formal documentation Reusable enterprise templates Tenant-wide libraries for custom fields, buckets, and workflows; versioning and approval flows for governed rollout Reliable data layer A standardized Power BI dataset, webhooks/events, incremental exports, and stable keys for multi-plan, multi-tenant analytics Scaling for long-horizon work Lift or mitigate the 1,250-day limit for leaf tasks and provide guidance or rules for multi-year programs Bottom line Planner can succeed as the enterprise management layer if it remains simple but gains the capabilities listed above. One does not work without the other. If Microsoft does not deliver these functions, enterprises will continue using Project, Primavera, or other scheduling tools — while adopting third-party platforms for governance and portfolio visibility. This would directly undermine Planner’s goal of becoming the unified standard within Microsoft 365. Please, do us a favor and spare organizations from having to implement yet another third-party tool. (And yes: I am aware of multiple enterprises that are in the process of testing and implementating different tools, presicely because of this missing capability)
My Tasks in Planner - Assigned to Me. Not Showing in Outlook ToDo Sidebar
Within the new Outlook, I leverage the functionality to drag a task from the ToDo sidebar and place it in my Calendar as a way to block time for completing that task. However, not all tasks show up in the Outlook ToDo sidebar. The category "Assigned to Me" does not show up meaning any task that was assigned to me in a plan I cannot place in my calendar. Struggling to find a uniform way to manage my tasks when there isn't complete visibility and uniformity in Microsoft's tools. And when will there be an updated mobile solution to Planner? The current outdated (and not supported) app does not include any premium plans, just basic.
Planner Plan 5 features in Planner (not Project Online) compared to Planner Plan 3
Hi! I have no clarity about the actual difference of using Planner (not Project Onlinr) with a Plan 5 VS a Plan 3. My understanding is that, within Planner only, currently there is difference as these features: Portfolio Analysis and Optimization Demand Management Enterprise Resource Management and Allocation are not yet in Planner. Anybody can be so kind to clarify or confirm? Thanks!When can we drag files, outlook items and attachment to Planner?
The flow to flag mail getting into a task in Planner is great but the attachment of mail is not included. We like to use Planner as Trello for complaints handling by different assignees. The complaint mail is getting into Planner but the attached complaint file doesn't come with it by this flow. So to get this into Planner i would like to drag and drop attachments and files what Trello facilitates. Anybody smart alternatives or workaround or better smart Flow ideas?? I prefer to stick to the MS apps, so no 3rd party apps.
Planner - We can't show comments right now
I'm getting the following error display as a banner on one of my Plans when I open Task items. "We can't show comments right now. Check again in a few minutes" I'm almost certain that this message only appears when a Task Comment has been deleted from the group mailbox. The issue is that the error message is misleading and my users think that comments are failing to show. Is there any way to prevent this message from displaying - I don't have access to the Admin Centre unfortunately.
New planner doesn't show a "schedule" view of tasks assigned to me from different plans
The new version of web-based Planner was enabled for me a few days ago, on November 17th. Apparently, I realized that one of the features I used is missing. At the "My Tasks" view, in the old version of Planner, one could choose to have different views, apart from the grid view. The most useful one for me was the "schedule" view, since I could see in one calendar, all assigned tasks from different plans/teams/projects. This functionality now seems to have been removed, and one can only see one separate schedule per plan.Microsoft Planner @Mention and Comment Notification in Microsoft Teams - NEW VERSION
Hi Planner Community, Thank you for the overwhelming support for my original post last year on how to @mention someone within the Microsoft Planner community and have a message automatically emailed to them. I'm excited to share that I've completely redesigned and updated the solution to now support the new Microsoft Teams Planner and remove the issues some users found with setting up the solution. Additionally, the notification is now an adaptive card within the Microsoft Teams chat to the user you @mentioned in the Microsoft Planner comment. Screenshot example above shows a comment posted by me in a Microsoft Planner task where I’ve @mentioned David at the end of the message. Screenshot example above shows the comment posted by me in Planner being automatically sent to David (thanks to the @mention in the comment) on Microsoft Teams. Allowing David to reply in either the traditional Planner or new Teams Planner. Attached is a zip file containing the Microsoft Power Automate solution, along with a detailed walkthrough to help you set it up. Enjoy! If you download the solution, all I ask is that you please give this post a thumbs up. Thanks, everyone! Matthew Davis No More Bad Monday
