Microsoft Planner is a visual task management software for teams. It gives users an online Kanban board-style work organization and team collaboration application accessible from the Microsoft Home site, from other Microsoft productivity apps, and from mobile devices. Teams can manage simple projects, organize workflow, and centralize all related information from files, emails, calendars, and conversations.
Microsoft Planner : Features and Strengths
Easy-to-Use, Centralized Task Management
Microsoft Planner is an online task management software using Kanban boards. It is intuitive and interactive. As part of the Microsoft 365 suite, users can log in in several ways, such as from the 365 Home page, from Teams or To Do, and from a mobile device. Microsoft users can create a new board in minutes because of the familiar experience consistent in these products.
Tasks now follow users from whatever MS apps they are using. Planner lets users create buckets (or lists) and quickly add tasks (or cards) in each bucket. The tasks can contain rich content including task description, due dates, checklists, color-coded labels, and file attachments. Users can favorite frequently accessed plans or pin them on the top of their screen.
Visual and Mobile
Microsoft Planner lets users keep track of their team’s progress from any device. It automatically creates pie charts and bar charts to help visualize task status. From the Charts menu, users can see how work is progressing. It will show overall status in a chart by showing how many tasks are not started, in progress, late, and completed. It has filters to show a specific status.
The Bucket chart can show how many tasks are in each bucket with related color-coding to show progress. Planner can also show visual reports by priority and number of tasks assigned per team member to check for overload. Native mobile apps for iOS and Android devices are available.
Integrated and Secure
Planner works with Microsoft Teams and To Do so users can view tasks from any of these apps. Users can also create tasks from messages in Teams. Collaboration within Planner or Tasks in Teams makes it easy for project teams to get more work done.
As part of the Microsoft 365 environment, Planner is a secure application that teams can safely connect with other apps like To Do, SharePoint, Power platforms, and other apps.
Microsoft Planner Pricing
Microsoft Planner is available with an annual subscription of Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans and of Microsoft 365 for Frontline workers.
Under the enterprise work management features of Microsoft 365, Planner is available with the Microsoft 365 E3 plan starting at $36 /user /month, and with the Microsoft 365 E5 plan starting at $57 /user /month.
Microsoft 365 for Frontline workers offers plan F1 at $2.25 /user /month paid annually and plan F3 at $8 /user /month. Additionally, Office 365 F3 at $4 /user /month also includes Microsoft Planner.
Who Uses Microsoft Planner?
Microsoft Planner is ideal for groups and teams working on simpler projects with a few deliverables and dependencies. Users like management consultants, marketing and advertising professionals, engineers, finance professionals, and project managers who need a board-based task management system can benefit in using Planner. Customers include House of Lilac, Suffolk Construction, Dell Technologies, Maersk, Cahoots, and Giant Eagle.
Microsoft Planner Supported Languages
Microsoft Planner (within Microsoft 365 Online) supports the following languages:
Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Azerbaijani – Latin script, Bangla (India), Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian – Latin script, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cherokee, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK), English (US), Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, French (Canada), Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish Gaelic, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Konkani, Korean, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian (North Macedonia), Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Māori, Marathi, Nepali, Norwegian (Bokmal), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Odia, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese Brazilian, Punjabi (India), Quechua (Peru), Romanian, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian – Cyrillic script, Serbian – Cyrillic script (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Serbian – Latin script, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Swedish, Tamil (India), Tatar, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek – Latin script, Valencian, Vietnamese, and Welsh.
Case Studies
Michael Juer is the IT project manager working with the new management of a district council in northern New Zealand. The council was making good progress in becoming a modern and collaborative council when the Covid-19 lockdown hit. Improving project capability was a priority, and the use of Microsoft Teams and Planner enabled the project team to create project hubs and shift to task-based project management. Michael stated that with the help of Microsoft Planner, he has a much better handle of managing projects. He can find things faster, communicate more readily, track tasks, and know which tasks they are ahead on and which ones they are behind on.
Jess Karlsson is the CEO of an Australian community organization that hosts programs and camps for children and young people living with disabilities and facing exceptional challenges. When the pandemic forced many organizations to shut its doors, the community org realized even more people needed their support. Jess and her team took advantage of the interoperability of the different MS 365 products. Together with Teams, Microsoft Planner helped them work through their weekly sprints. The transparent digital dashboard allowed them to see what everyone was working on in real time. With a connected team, the org was able to implement innovative solutions throughout the pandemic.
Why Choose Microsoft Planner?
Microsoft Planner is an visual task planner and manager ideal for Microsoft 365 users. It is an intuitive task management software that enables groups to quickly create plans, assign tasks, and collaborate in real time. It can help remote teams organize fast without the need for training, communicate about work, generate charts and reports automatically, and access all these information from any MS 365 apps like Teams and To Do from the office or on the go.
Company Info
Microsoft Corporation is a publicly traded American company with headquarters in Redmond, WA. It was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Microsoft Planner is a product included in Microsoft 365, an enhanced offering of productivity software and services beyond the core Microsoft Office family. Now, Microsoft 365 users are able to manage tasks and work that follow them across the different apps they use, including Planner.
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