What exactly is this Microsoft Planner thing?
Microsoft Planner is an application for managing work that is accessible over the web. It is a service provided by Office 365. With the help of this straightforward application, it is able to organise chores and take care of modest projects without the need for extensive planning effort. You are able to effectively schedule and arrange tasks and timeframes with the help of Microsoft Planner. In addition, you are able to establish due dates, share data, and ensure that all members of the team are in constant communication with one another.
The productivity apps Asana and Trello are the ones most analogous to Microsoft Planner’s features. On the other hand, the fact that this application for project management is integrated into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem is a significant advantage (including interfaces with Outlook, SharePoint and Teams among others).
Who Should Use the Microsoft Planner?
It has been determined that Microsoft Planner is an appropriate tool for the following use cases:
Managing small projects
Methods of agile development such as Kanban and Scrum
There is no requirement for the management of resources or capacity.
There are no necessary relationships between the various jobs.
Linking Project Online Client using a standard interface or through the use of tools provided by a third party
Iterative task execution using agile frameworks is now common practise at many businesses. Microsoft Planner provides the appropriate degree of adaptability for accomplishing this goal. You are free to organise the plans in any way that best suits your needs, such as categorising them according to phases, subjects, or areas.
Functions and capabilities of the Microsoft Planner
Enhanced Organization, Including Duties Categorized by Topics
In contrast to a standard task list, Planner gives you the ability to aesthetically create and organise each and every one of your chores. They can be shown in “buckets,” which are essentially columns and correspond to the themes. You are free to give each of these buckets a unique name.
View of the Schedule and Integration with Outlook
After assigning a start or deadline date to a task in Microsoft Planner, you are able to view the item on a calendar by switching to the Schedule view and utilising Planner. You also have the option of displaying the calendar from your Planner in Outlook.
Always Know Where You Stand Because of Dashboards
A dashboard is included with each individual plan in Microsoft Planner. In this section, you will be able to assess tasks according to their current condition or whether or not they correspond to a plan. You maintain an overview of all tasks, whether they are open or finished. The progression of the project is shown by a variety of charts, each of which highlights which activities are now behind schedule.
In the workplace, on your own computer, or when using mobile devices
Microsoft Planner is accessible on a variety of platforms, including as a web-based tool and a mobile application. This is true for Android phones and tablets as well as those using Apple’s iOS operating system.
How Should One Make Use of Microsoft Planner?
Microsoft Planner falls somewhere in the middle of Microsoft To-Do and Microsoft Project / Project Online in terms of the difficulty of a project and the size of the team. Microsoft Project / Project Online is a more difficult and far more sophisticated programme.
Microsoft To-Do is a personal tool for managing tasks and is developed by Microsoft. Because you can only generate your own to-do lists at the moment, the application is only helpful for people at this time. Wunderlist was the predecessor to Microsoft To-Do, which is an app that emphasises individual productivity and is a further evolution of Wunderlist.
Microsoft Planner: Using Microsoft Planner, you are able to establish a plan, delegate tasks, put together a team, and update the status of the tasks that are related with the plan. Agile work methods are enabled, such as the Kanban board, which enables tasks to be moved using a drag-and-drop interface. It is to everyone’s advantage to utilise Microsoft Planner not just within a group setting but also for the individual depiction of the tasks that are given to a single person.
Project Online is a fully-fledged platform for managing projects, portfolios, and resources, and its name says it all: Project Online. Just three of the numerous differences between this and Microsoft Planner are the mapping of relationships between processes, recalculating the whole plan in the event of delays, and a common resource pool.
An Overview of the Infrastructure Used by Microsoft Planner
If you use Microsoft Planner to create a new plan, an associated Microsoft 365 group will be generated along with all of the plan’s components automatically. This makes communication on the scheduling of tasks as well as the management of documents and alerts more easier.
Components of an MS Planner Group that Are Part of Microsoft 365
Shared inbox: A place for members of your organisation to communicate via email with one another In the same vein as a traditional mailing list, this inbox possesses an email address and may be set up to receive messages from individuals who are not part of the group or even your company.
- The shared calendar is for the purpose of event planning that is relevant to the group.
- The SharePoint document library serves as a centralised location for the group to store and exchange files.
- Notebook in OneNote that may be shared with others, used for accumulating ideas, research data, and information.
- In addition to that, a plan will also include what are known as buckets. You are free to give them whatever name you choose and arrange your responsibilities inside them according to a variety of criteria. The tasks are able to have a status, as well as titles, descriptions, allocations, and documents associated to them.
Even with the basic version of MS Project, it is possible to use a straightforward connection to connect an existing plan with a task. On the other hand, there is a solution that is offered by a third party that is far more powerful.
