Project Management Updates
Check out updated features below for:
The Planner App in Teams Will Be Renamed with An Updated Experience Powered by Planner and To Do
April 29, 2020 - The Planner app in Teams will become the Tasks app. Users will now be able see their individual tasks and team tasks in a single app. We’re also introducing both a list view and a new mobile tasks experience within the Teams app for mobile devices. The Planner app will be renamed after the rollout is complete.
We will begin roll-out in May or June and expect to be complete by mid-July.
Users will see personal tasks powered by To Do (which also powers Outlook tasks) and team tasks powered by Planner. Existing Planner tabs will behave the same as they do today but will show an additional list view. Users will be able to add new Tasks tabs to the channels in teams they belong to. Users can also access the Tasks app in the same ways they previously accessed the Planner app.
Renaming the Planner app in Teams to Tasks and enabling a mobile experience in Teams
We’re planning to rename the Planner app to Tasks. The new Tasks experience will contain individual tasks and team and channel tasks, similar to how Files encompasses a user's personal files in their own OneDrive for Business as well as their team and channel files. We’ll make this adjustment in two steps.
Once we’ve made the new tasks experience broadly available to all public cloud organizations, we’ll enable the Tasks in Teams mobile experience and complete a logo update and an interim rename of the Planner app. Its interim name will be Tasks by Planner and To Do. This will help ensure the app can be found when searching for Planner while adding a tab or searching for the app in the app catalog.
A few months after the interim name change, the app name on desktop will be shortened to Tasks.
This name change applies only to the Planner app in Teams. All other Planner clients and To Do clients will keep their existing names, and users can continue to use those clients to manage tasks just as they do today.
The upgrade will also include task publishing functionality.
For more information about the Tasks in Teams functionality, please visit Manage the Tasks app for your organization in Microsoft Teams.
Feature Update: Tasks Powered by To-Do Generally Available
Feb 13, 2020 - When this change is implemented, users will no longer be able to see the classic Tasks experience in Outlook on the web. The new Tasks experience is powered by To Do, so users will see all their tasks as well as lists of tasks they have created, any flagged emails, and tasks and lists they have created in the To Do app.
Please click additional information to learn more.
New Feature: Microsoft To Do - Notifications for Shared Lists
November 9, 2019 - Microsoft To Do: Push Notifications is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. The rollout will be complete by the end of December.
Customers who use To Do will begin receiving push notifications informing them of changes in task lists they share.
New Feature: Priority Field for Planner Tasks
August 30, 2019 - We will soon begin rolling out a Priority field for Planner tasks in Microsoft O365.
You will be able to set tasks in Planner to Low, Medium, Important, and Urgent using the priority field. In addition, users can group by priority.
We'll be gradually rolling this out beginning the end of August. The roll out will be completed in early September.
Feature Update: "Plan" Cards for Office 365 Groups
June 18, 2019 - We're making some changes to the "All Plans" section of the Planner hub. Planner will no longer show "plan" cards for Office 365 Groups that don't have a plan associated with it.
Once this change is implemented, users will only see cards that represent Plans in their "All Plans" section.
We will begin rolling this out in mid-July and expect to be complete by the end of July.
Please click additional information to learn more.
New Feature: To-Do
April 2, 2019 - Users who opt-in to the Planner integration will be able to see and edit tasks they have been assigned to in Planner within To-Do. These tasks will surface in the "Assigned to me" list, but will also appear in To-Do search results, My Day suggestions, and the Planned smart list (all tasks with a due date). Users may turn off this integration at any time via the To-Do Settings menu.
We'll be gradually rolling this out to customers in April, 2019, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of May 2019.
Please click additional information to learn more.
Use Task Boards in Microsoft Project Online Desktop Client
September 13, 2018 - If you're a Project Online subscriber, you can work with your projects in a more agile way in the Project Online Desktop Client. If you are used to using Kanban for Scrum methodologies to manage your projects, the Project Online Desktop Client allows you to create and manage your projects in a familiar way through the use of task board views of your projects and the ability to create sprints-based projects.
Important:
- The features described in this article are only available with the version of Project available with a Project Online subscription. To check which version of Project you're using, open Project, choose File, and then select Account. Under Product Information, you have the subscription version if you see the following:
- Additionally, some functionality is introduced gradually to organizations that have set up the targeted release options in Office 365. This means that you may not yet see this feature or it may look different than what is described in the help articles.
Learn how to:
New Feature: Microsoft To-Do List Sharing
May 30, 2018 - To help you collaborate on your tasks, you can now share your lists in Microsoft To-Do with other To-Do users. To-Do List Sharing is a new Office 365 feature that will be rolling out in early June 2018.
You don't need to do anything to prepare for this change. Please click additional information to learn more.
New Feature: Microsoft To-Do Steps
April 3, 2018 - With Microsoft To-Do Steps, you will be able to add subtasks when using the app. This allows you to break your to-dos down into smaller, more actionable steps when you open a to-do's details view.
A handy count of how many steps a person has completed will be shown as well, next to other details like its due date or whether or not it has a reminder set. Microsoft began gradually rolling this out on April 5, and they anticipate rollout completion by mid-April.
You don't need to do anything to prepare for this change. Please click additional information to learn more.
Conquer Time with New Features in Microsoft Planner
March 1, 2018 - Teams and individuals depend on Microsoft Planner to get organized quickly, work together effortlessly, and stay on the same page — no matter how large or small the project. Four new features for Planner will give you greater visibility into project schedules, let you group and filter tasks, allow you to receive notifications of upcoming deadlines, and soon you will be able to publish tasks to your Outlook calendar.
Here is an overview of the four new features.
- Schedule view — Meet deadlines, plan ahead, and understand project status with the ability to view your task schedule. In addition, weekly and monthly task views allow drag-and-drop scheduling. Read the support article for more details.
- Group and Filter options — The Group and Filter options in Planner give you deeper insights into your tasks to help you meet key deadlines. For example, filter your tasks by due date to better understand approaching deadlines. Or use the Group feature to view tasks that have not been started, so you can prioritize your work.
- Due date notifications — Receive an email notification summarizing tasks due in the coming week — and stay on top of your approaching deliverables.
- iCalendar format feed (coming soon) — Make better scheduling and time-management decisions by publishing tasks to your calendar. By adding your tasks to your Outlook calendar, you’ll never lose track of current and upcoming tasks — helping you meet your deliverables.
These features have been among the top requests on the Planner UserVoice forum. Schedule view, Group and Filter, and Due date notifications are now available to all Office 365 subscribers. Outlook calendar integration via the iCalendar format feed is rolling out soon. We look forward to your comments and feedback. Feel free to submit feedback through the Planner UserVoice forum. Visit Planner now!
New to Planner?
There’s never been a better time to start using Planner! With these new capabilities, Planner is a complete solution for task and work management. Planner is part of the Office 365 productivity suite and is fully integrated with the other Office 365 applications. And if you’re already using Microsoft Teams, you can host a Planner Plan inside your Teams workspace, so everybody can collaborate in one place. You can also link a Planner Plan to a task in Microsoft Project Online, so your team can track tasks and work details in Planner even when that work is part of a larger Project plan being tracked in Project Online. Visit Planner to learn more.
New Feature: See Microsoft Planner Tasks in iCalendar
February 10, 2018 - The new feature allows you to publish your "My tasks" or all tasks from individual plans to an iCalendar URL. Using the iCalendar URL, you can view your Microsoft Planner tasks in Outlook or other calendar applications compatible with iCalendar. This feature is on by default, so you do not need to do anything to activate it.
Please click additional information to learn more.
