Managing Tasks With Microsoft Planner
Staying on top of deadlines and tasks is a crucial part of a lawyer’s work. Additionally, tracking tasks assigned to others and helping prioritize assignments is essential to supervision and success. There are many ways to track both your tasks and others’ to-dos, but often the methods become scattered among texts, emails, sticky notes and verbal instructions. There are many to-do and project management tools available to help create a method of creating and tracking tasks. If you are a subscriber to a Microsoft 365 business version (Standard or Premium) you can start using a tool that is built into the suite called Microsoft Planner. Planner has evolved to capture tasks from To Do, as well as tasks from projects. The upgraded Planner can provide support for getting things done.
The Evolution of Task Management in MS 365
In the last few years, Microsoft 365 has added many tools and applications to the plans for Business Standard and Premium. Many of them were helpful, but with so many tools that didn’t always share information, it was difficult to figure out which application was best to use for personal and group productivity. These tools include:
Microsoft To Do, a product born from the purchase of Wunderlist, is a simple task management tool. In addition to letting you create personal tasks, it offers a replacement for tasks in Microsoft Outlook and helps track email messages that are flagged for follow-up. It also had a simple way to assign tasks to others. However, To Do has serious limitations for group projects, reporting, and dashboard views.
Microsoft Planner rolled out a few years ago. It is a simple project management tool. Users could create group projects with tasks, deadlines, and assignments. Task “cards” held checklists, notes, links to documents, and communications about a specific task. Projects could be viewed as Kanban boards or as lists. Project tasks could be viewed and filtered extensively. Charts for projects showed status reports that could be filtered to show overdue items, team progress, and deadlines in jeopardy.
Tasks by Planner and To Do in Teams was a tool that could be added to a Teams workspace channel. It was the beginning of an attempt to combine To Do and Planner into one space. The interface and some functionality for Tasks by Planner in Teams was slightly different than the stand-alone Planner, though they held the same information. Tasks by Planner in Teams would show in Planner and vice versa.
Microsoft Project is a more robust project management application. It is not part of Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Premium. The newer web version is a separate license. It is a more traditional project management tool, with GANTT charts, time tracking, and more extensive templates and workflows.
Due to feedback from customers regarding the tool proliferation across work management apps that caused “rework, missed opportunities, and reduced productivity,” Microsoft is trying to consolidate these various tools into a combined experience.
The “New” Microsoft Planner
While Planner that comes included with Microsoft Business Standard and Premium plans remains available at no additional cost, there are new Planner plans that included more robust features from Project starting at $10 additional fees per month. Plans that include features from Project and the preview of Copilot AI in planner start at $30 additional per month.
The latest version of Planner included with the Microsoft Business plans attempts to provide all tasks in one place, whether from a flagged email, from To Do, from a Teams Task by Planner (now just called Planner) or from the old version of Planner. The company is trying to create an interface that is shared across Teams and Planner, so some features have been degraded, though unless you were a power user of Planner it is unlikely that you will notice.
Of note, users of Microsoft Project and Microsoft To Do will not need to worry that these tools will disappear or change. Currently, they will remain the same. The change is that, depending on your plan, you will be able to see more tasks from To Do and Project in Planner so you have a single interface to see all of your tasks, assignments and deadlines no matter what tool they are created in.
Planner 2.0
Where is Planner? If you are a MS 365 subscriber, go to www.microsoft365.com and log in. Click on Apps and navigate to open the Planner. Planner is a web-based product, so it works in your browser or as an app on your smartphone.
When you open Planner, if you have been using Microsoft To Do, you will notice some similarities. You can see “My Day” at the top left of the screen. You can add new tasks as Private tasks or add a task to an existing Planner plan from Teams or Planner.
Below My Day is My Tasks. This list shows almost every task you have. You can search the list, or look at segments like All, Private Tasks, Assigned to Me and Flagged Emails. You can filter each section by Due Date, Priority, and Progress. You can order the segments by name, due date, priority, progress or get a quick look at the task card. For instance, if you see a flagged email you can click on Quick Look to add a due date, notes, attachments, or view the email. This makes it easy to turn a flagged email into a tracked task. Right-click on the task name to add it to My Day, open details, copy it, move it, delete it, copy a link, or mark the task complete.
The next option is My Plans. This shows any previous plans created in Planner, Tasks by Planner and To Do, group tasks from To Do, and tasks embedded in Loop task templates. You can search My Plans, or view Recent, Shared, Personal, or Pinned.
Creating Tasks
To add a single task in Planner, go to My Day and click “Add New Task.” You will be prompted to create a name, choose if it is a private task or part of an existing plan, add a due date, and a priority. You can view these tasks in a grid (list) or as a Board. A Board is a Kanban board, so if you are not familiar with Kanban and tools like Trello this might take some getting used to. If you are a To Do user, you can create your To Do tasks as usual, and they will appear in Planner.
As mentioned, if you want to add an existing task on My Day, right-click from your My Tasks list and click “Add to My Day.”
You can open an existing plan from My Plans and add a task. Create a title, assignment, start date, due date, add a bucket if using Kanban boards, priority and labels. You can create color-coded labels for tasks that are searchable and sortable.
Creating Plans
Whether you create a plan in Planner or in a Team’s channel, the interface is now the same. You can choose from template plans like simple projects, though you will more than likely find it easier to create your own. If you choose the default view, which is Board, you can easily adjust the titles of the Bucket. Buckets are a way to break a project down into groups of tasks. They can be specific (request necessary documentation) or generic (to do, doing, done).
In your plan, you can view your plan as a grid (list), Board, Schedule with deadlines on a calendar, or view a chart to show progress. Under the plan name at the top of the screen, click the arrow to view plan details, copy a link to the plan, copy the plan to use as a template, add the plan to an Outlook calendar, or export the plan to Excel. Only plan owners can share a plan in a calendar.
Once you have set up the Buckets, start adding tasks. Each task has a name, a due date and an assignment. Once you have created the task, you can double-click the task card in the Board view or Open Details in the Grid view to add more information like notes, whether the task is recurring, checklist items, attachments, and comments.
New assignments will appear in your To Do, and as an email notification. If you add the plan to a Teams workspace, new activity will also appear in your group chat.
Conclusion
There are lots of task management and project management tools to choose from on the market. The tools that come with the Microsoft 365 Business plans are not the most robust available; however, they do have the advantage of deep integration with other Microsoft tools like Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint. Planner is part of the subscription, so it is not an added fee. If you have not tried using a project management tool or to do an application before, this is a great way to check it out to see if you like the concept. The most challenging part of technology is changing how you do things. Test a case or matter to see if Planner can help you stay on top of your tasks.
Catherine Sanders Reach serves as director of the NCBA Center for Practice Management.