A new Planner has been released for Microsoft Teams. Later this year, the functionality of the new Planner will also appear in the browser interface Planner. The new Planner will combine the functionality of the old Planner, Project for the Web and the ToDo application under one interface.
Image: to add a new Planner to Teams
The Planner application has not required any other licenses in addition to a Microsoft 365 subscription. Its use has become widespread. Planner is a very easy-to-use work management tool, allowing a team or project to run a weekly work management process with a nifty Kanban view.
The old Planner is now Planner Basic
The limitations of Planner have come into play when there has been a need to present schedules as Gantt charts, plan workloads for tasks or report on tasks, workloads and projects. Furthermore, Planner has not been configurable in a way that would have allowed its use to be standardised according to the company’s agreed practices. Reporting on tasks in Planner plans has been practically impossible, as the reporting tools do not aggregate data from Planner plans.
The existing Planner functionalities will remain in the new Planner as Basic features. These features can still be used with a subscription to M365 only. Previously created plans will work in the new Planner as before.
Project for the Web on now Planner Premium
When the Project for the Web tool is integrated with Planner, the Project tool functions appear under Planner as Premium features. The Planner and Project for the Web tools are therefore not yet very closely integrated “under the hood”. We will probably see a closer integration in terms of the technical platform later on.
Image: when creating a new plan, you select the type of plan to create, either Basic (old Planner) or Premium (Project for the Web)
Planner Premium on then Project for the Web. Plans created in the Project for the Web browser-based application will appear in Planner as Premium plans, and Premium plans created in Planner will be available in Project for the Web and Project Power Apps.
It is good to understand that, at least for the time being, the data for Planner Basic plans is stored in a different repository than for Planner Premium plans. Premium plans are stored in the Power Platform’s Dataverse repository, from which reporting with Power Bi, for example, can be easily done. The data for Premium plans is also available in Power Apps. The Dataverse data warehouse and Power Apps allow you to extend your project data with your own additional data and functionality. Premium functionality therefore offers the possibility to configure and customise the portfolio management and reporting functionalities required for the system and to standardise it with the company’s own procedures.
The Premium level of Planner now gives Planner users a clearer path to a wider range of project management functionality. Premium functionality is available in Planner and can be accessed by purchasing the necessary licenses. Even previously created Basic Plans can be upgraded to Premium Plans when Premium functionality is desired.
For the basic functionality of Planner, a Microsoft 365 license subscription is sufficient. As before, Basic Planner plans can be created and used by all M365 licensed users.
Previously on Project Plan 1 has now been renamed Planner Plan 1 as Planner Plan Plan. This subscription opens up the possibility for the user to create and edit Premium Plans, with functionality ranging from basic Gantt charts to a customized Power App.
To get all the project design features, the user must purchase Project Plan 3 license. Project Plan 3 is therefore a licence for the user role of project manager. It can be used to access advanced functions such as different types of task dependencies, to build road map views of key tasks in different project plans, and to customise the Power App for Premium Plan processing. With a Project Plan 3 license, you can also use Copilot to create and analyse plans.
Project Plan 5 more functionality for the licence will become available later this year. It will extend functionality in the areas of resource management and portfolio management. The main user roles of the licence are resource managers and project portfolio managers.
Microsoft ToDo is now a My Tasks feature in Planner
A person’s own ToDo worklist, displayed in the new Planner as My Tasks. It brings together in one place the tasks created for a person in different tools, whether the task was created in a Planner Basic plan, a Planner Premium plan, a Loop ToDo task list or an Outlook ToDo task list.
You can still view and update your own work in Outlook and the ToDo mobile app.
This is a welcome innovation for Project for the Web users. Members of your project team now have a simple way to see and update the completion status of tasks from different projects and other plans.
We will organise a webinar on the new Planner on 21 May. Welcome to hear more about this topic.