Microsoft’s new Planner application fills a gap in the market when it comes to planning for tasks that are too complex for a to-do-list, but don’t quite require traditional project management processes. This week, we take a look at O365’s newest task management application and provide an overview of its features and benefits.
What O365 plans is Microsoft Planner available for?
Microsoft Planner is an application available on Office 365 Business Premium and Business Essentials as well as Office 365 Enterprise packages E1, E2 and E3.
What is it?
Essentially, Office 365 Planner is for organising teamwork. The platform allows users to organise and assign tasks to different users, share files, create plans, and receive progress updates.
How is it any different to Asana, Slack, or Wunderlist?
Office 365 Planner has all the same features as these other teamwork organisation platforms but what makes it unique is it’s ability to integrate with other Office 365 tools. Planner uses the Outlook calendar as a shared calendar, and files shared for projects are stored in SharePoint, OneNote can be used as a shared platform for brainstorming the note taking and Groups can be used to manage who is involved in the project.
These integrations minimise double handling and streamline the collaborative process.
Key Features
Buckets
For organising and dividing up tasks- you might use buckets to divide tasks by department, phase or priority.
Cards
Like other task management applications, Microsoft Planner has you create tasks by creating cards which are named, given a due date and assigned to a team member. Other details which can be added include progress level, start date, a checklist of sub-tasks, link to documents and priority levels.
Conversations
This is a tab which allows team members to discuss specific tasks as well as the larger project as a whole.
Charts
Provides a visual breakdown of tasks and progress (a doughnut chart shows which tasks are not completed, in progress, late and completed) as well as how many tasks are assigned to each team member.
Planner Hub
Enables team members to view different projects they are involved in.