Ability to send an email to Planner and create a Task
Is this on the roadmap? Our organization is starting to lose the battle of using Planner instead of Trello, pretty much because of the sole feature that Trello allows you to send an email to a specific email address and it will automatically create a Task. It is quite a simple model: Email Subject = Task Title Email Body = Task Description Email Attachments = Task Attachments This would be a massive win for adoption. Looks like this is the entry with the most votes, but there are about 100 of them that individually are asking for the same/similar functionality: https://planner.uservoice.com/forums/330525-microsoft-planner-feedback-forum/suggestions/13076007-ability-to-add-email-as-planner-task
Trello vs. Planner - whats missing in Planner and what would make it better than Trello
Hi Everyone, So as a user of Trello (but an enterprise user of 365) I am constantly fighting the battle to migrate over to Planner from Trello (I want to migrate). The following elements are what we see as what is missing: - Full Integration with Outlook task management - Ability to export plans from project and create a new plan in Planner - The ability to move tasks with assignments, attachments and comment history's between plans - I get the fact around plan members but we need to be innovative about how to resolve this. - Desktop version or added fully to Teams and/or Outlook - Ability to create an executive summary board by enabling the ability to sync the same task on multiple boards without giving access to the assigned person - Ability to @tag someone in comments and send a notification to them - The ability to see all the tasks across all the cards at the Hub level (similar the calendar feature in Trello) - Be able to set recurring tasks and assign the bucket and plan they appear in - When copying a list from other office apps it adds one line per checklist item - Ability to set hotkeys - PowerBI link to complement current reporting - Gantt chart view with dependencies and resources - Configurable notifications i.e. if I am syncing with an external tool e.g. unito I would like the ability to not get thousands of notifications each time it syncs. - The ability to change the order of plans in the favourites area - Change the background colour and design to each Plan - Ability to watch tasks - Ability to copy a board - Ability to set a time as well as a deadline date - Ability to print a board - Voting - How to use this board notes area which allows pictures and info graphics What would make it better than Trello: - The ability to assign a priority to a task personally I use the Franklin Covey method of ABC and 1,2,3 but any 2 level prioritisation would be fine - Once a priority assigned for that task to be priority ordered in the bucket(s) it exists - Stickers and the ability to filter against them - Configurable Progress categories - Email to task/ bucket/ plan - ability to assign a checklist item and due date to someone not necessarily on that plan - set dependencies against other tasks - Different template designs e.g. agile, 7 habits etc. - Ability to set an alert against a task - Custom fields - List views - Add 'live' power bi tiles and show on card e.g. simple KPI tracker - The ability for the board admin to fix cards into position preventing members from moving them and finally further develop links to other software e.g. Mindjet Mindmapper, zoho, salesforce, etc. Its a long list I know but welcome anyone else to add to this
How do you use Planner?
With the https://medium.com/@mansoor.malik/a-few-updates-to-planner-integration-in-microsoft-teams-6e9683d1e085 to Planner, my small team has leaned in and made it our project management tool of choice. There are so many choices for task management tools and methodologies out there (Trello, Wrike, Todoist, easynote.io, Kanban, bullet journaling, and good-old Outlook tasks to name a few), and we've tried a lot of them to varying degress of success. Planner though, with its integration into Teams, has become sticky in a way others haven't. Initially, here at AvePoint, my team had some process hurdles to jump--it was a big change to go from our home-brew system to something as frictionless and adaptable as Planner is--so I reflected on this change and wrote out how I personally use Planner here. https://www.avepoint.com/blog/strategy-blog/how-to-use-microsoft-planner-avepoint-technical-writers/ I'd love to hear how the community here uses Planner for their day-to-day project management. I feel like this is one area I could always get better at, so I'm curious-- How do you use Planner to stay on top of all your work? Do you have system or process for creating tasks? Do you use the Groups conversations for something specific, like I do? What value do you get out of Planner charts?
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)Planner Dashboards (Cross Planners, AD Direct Reports, Etc.)
What - if any - rollup capabilities do the planner dashboards have? I'm looking specifically to Planner as a solution for a central, simple, unified task management platform. However, my reporting needs would include: Roll-up of multiple planners into one view for a user (Similar to what the old MySite task rollup allowed) Roll-up of multiple planners into one view for a project manager, admin, etc. Ability to view a team's tasks...for instance based on AD managerUsers not receiving email notification for task assignment
Users haven't been receiving an email when a task is assigned to them. They do, however, receive an email when a task they're assigned to is commented on or is marked completed (discovered this wasn't the case after further testing. The user will not receive an email until they are @ mentioned). If the user is subscribed to the Plan/Group, they will receive an email, but they also receive an email for everything, which is not what we want. Is this a known issue/bug? ETA on a fix? Trying really hard to roll out Groups and Planner here, but this issue is making it difficult for me to get people on board (continues the notion that Office is "hard to use"). According to this Support page, users should be receiving and email when a task is assigned to them: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Get-email-about-your-tasks-and-plans-cce223d6-b0ae-43cf-a080-266e2414a859Which tool when: Project or Planner?
There's a reasonably new project management tool in play. When should you use Microsoft Project versus the newer Microsoft Planner? There are pros and cons to both and it's important you know them before getting started. That, and proponents of Project may be going overkill now that there's a user-friendly 'competitor'. Here's some guidance to help you along the way. Hopefully you find this info useful! https://icsh.pt/ProjectOrPlanner
