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)
Can't Remove Plan I created attached to Team
We're in a GCC High Tenant. I created a plan and associated it with a Team. I'm not the owner of that Team. After adding the plan to that Team, I thought it would be better to move it to a different team to avoid the mass notifications (that Planner owners can't control and no one can turn off comment notifications). Turns out, I can't move it because I'm not the Team Owner? Why am I not able to delete a plan I created? What if a user attached the plan to the wrong team or the plan needs to switch or it just needs to be deleted all together? Why should someone need to be a team owner? Why can't we control comment notifications and/or who overall is notified? The original team was added because the plan is associated to a Channel in that team. That channel is only relevant to certain individuals. We can customize team notifications by channel... why not planner notifications? If I'm missing something, please let me know. I'm all ears and willing to be wrong, but if I'm not, please consider this feedback Microsoft.
"Read Only" Error for Existing Premium Board showing as converting to Prem
We have a 2 Planner Premium boards that continue to give an error message within the TEAMs channel as "This plan is being converted to premium. You can view it now, and come back later to edit it." It is saved as a shortcut at the top of the channel, this way message within the card can be posted. A few problems with the ERROR: The Board was converted to Premium months ago. It has remained in this status for days now, when we originally converted it took 5 mins. When searching, Planner now shows multiple versions of this board. Trying to determine if this is a glitch in the matrix or potentially a user issue. Since we can not validate the history on an entire board, thought is may be an output due to the many changes taking place in Prem. We resolved by removing from Teams and then adding a duplicate version and it seems to work, for now.Planner Constraints in GCC frustrating (e.g., inability to convert basic plans to premium plans)
We have a GCC client that is growing frustrated by the constraints they continue to encounter with their Planner and Project Plan 3 licensing. Converting basic plans into premium plans isn't available for customers working from a GCC environment Task history is currently not available for customers in GCC There are limited GCC/Planner items found in the roadmap. Can anyone direct me to any sort of update or forecast on functions such as these withing GCC?
Active linking between the same tasks in multiple planners
I am working in an educational setting, where content area departments each have their own planner to coordinate their work. Then the district administration has there own planner to coordinate programs and funding streams. There is a lot of overlap between to 2 sets of planners and I often have to manually update tasks between them. It would be really nice to be able to link tasks between planners so that if a task is copied from one planner to another, any changes made in one planner would automatically update in both planners.
Add member to a checklist
Were looking for projekt app and looking both at planner and Trello. We are missing the possiblity to add member for different checkpoints. My colleages will take Trello if this is not on the roadmapp spring 2024. Is there anybody who know anything about why this never have been implementated i planner???? MR SpeednissenWhat's new in Microsoft Planner – December 2024
We’re excited to wrap up the year with some major updates, including the rollout of the new Planner for the web, portfolios, and Project Manager agent, to name a few. Customer feedback continues to inform improvements to our product, so be sure to check out the updates we have in the works at the end of this article! A look back at Planner’s Microsoft Ignite announcements We recently announced several new capabilities at the Microsoft Ignite conference to make it easier for you to coordinate your projects. Planner for the web: The new Planner for the web is now generally available, and it’s packed with features to help you manage all your work seamlessly across Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft Project, while leveraging the AI capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot for Planner (preview). To try out the new Planner for the web, you can go to planner.cloud.microsoft today. Portfolios: With portfolios, users with a Planner and Project Plan 3 or Planner and Project Plan 5 license can easily group related plans, track progress from a high-level view, and organize tasks visually with the Roadmap view. This means you can keep an eye on all your plans in one place and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Read more at: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/plannerblog/manage-multiple-plans-effortlessly-with-the-new-portfolios-feature-in-microsoft-/4342145?previewMessage=true Project Manager agent: With Project Manager agent, we’re bringing the power of AI directly into your plans. As your virtual project manager, Project Manager agent serves to streamline your workflow by handling tasks so you can focus on the big picture. Learn more about Project Manager Agent in our Ignite blog: Unleashing the power of agents in Microsoft Planner | Microsoft Community Hub App-powered tasks in public preview The app-powered tasks feature offers your organization more control over what users see when they open their tasks in the Planner app in Microsoft Teams. Instead of showing only the standard set of task fields, you can provide users with an experience tailored to the task at hand. That experience might be a workflow-specific set of fields or step-by-step guidance to walk the user through a workflow from beginning to end. To use this feature, your organization will integrate a Teams app with the task, which will enable app-powered task functionality. Learn more about the public preview of tailored task experiences with app-powered tasks or how to manage app-powered tasks in Planner for tailored task experiences. Project Operations and Project Online plans in the new Planner You can now view Dynamics 365 Project Operations and Project Online plans in the My Plans section of Planner. This update makes it easier than ever to keep track of all your work in one convenient place. Bugs fixed in the new Planner We wanted to take a moment to thank you for your customer feedback, and this month we wanted to highlight two notable bug fixes that you helped us identify. Now, labels associated with tasks get transferred over when you copy a plan. Furthermore, you should expect date formats to match your locale settings. Coming soon Based on your valuable feedback, we’re rolling out new features to make your planning experience even better. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming soon: Smart backgrounds: Get ready to customize your plans like never before! With smart backgrounds, you’ll be able to quickly spot the right plans. This feature was part of our legacy Planner experience, and we’re now enabling it for basic plans in the new Planner. Board view for My Tasks: Board view in My Tasks offers a visual representation of your tasks similar to a kanban board, making it easier to track progress and manage your workload. See all your tasks at a glance and move them between columns to update their progress. Board view will be available in addition to the existing grid view in My Tasks in early 2025. New Planner tab in Teams: Collaboration just got easier! With the new Planner tab, you can add any plan—basic or premium—directly to a Teams channel. This means you can work on shared projects seamlessly, right alongside your conversations. Removing the default filter: We understand that changes can be challenging, especially when they affect your preferred way of working. When we released the new Planner, we introduced a default filter to hide completed tasks as a temporary measure to help manage clutter in existing plans. However, this made it difficult for many users to find their completed tasks. With the recent update that saves your filter settings, you now have more control over your task visibility - you no longer need to change the filter to match your preference each time you visit a plan. We are now removing the default filter to give you full control over your plans. Additional column customization options: We’re currently rolling out the ability to reorder your Grid columns in the My Tasks and My Day views and are planning to launch the ability to hide columns after. Stay tuned for next month’s update on how you can use this feature to focus on the most important details of your plan. Share your feedback Tell us your thoughts on the new Planner for the web by using the Feedback button in the top right corner of the app. We also encourage you to share any features you would like to see in the app by adding it to our Planner Feedback Portal. Your feedback helps inform our feature updates, and we look forward to hearing from you as you try Planner’s new and existing capabilities! Resources Check out the Planner adoption page. Sign up to receive future communication about Planner. Check out the Microsoft 365 roadmap for feature descriptions and estimated release dates for Planner. Watch Planner demos for inspiration on how to get the most out of the new Planner app in Microsoft Teams. Watch the recording from September's What’s New and What’s Coming Next + AMA about the new Planner. Visit the Planner help page to learn more about the capabilities in the new Planner.
