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What is Planner and Why is it Useful?53.6 KB What is Planner and Why is it Useful? - Solution
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Quick reference
What is Planner and Why is it Useful?
Explore Microsoft Planner and understand why it is useful for basic tasks and project management.
When to use
To use Microsoft Planner, we need to be familiar with the layout, interface, and controls.
Instructions
What is Microsoft Planner?
Microsoft Planner is an application available as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription. It’s used for organizing individual or team tasks in a collaborative, intuitive environment.
In Microsoft Planner we can keep track of tasks, organize them into buckets, add labels, track progress, create subtasks, assign tasks to others and monitor task progress. We can do all of this in a simple-to-use dashboard-style interface in the cloud. This means we can download the Planner app and take our tasks with us on the go so we are always on top of outstanding teamwork.
Microsoft Planner is part of Microsoft 365 and so connects easily with applications like ToDo, Teams, and SharePoint.
Planner is really the starting point for low-level project management. If you just want a simple application to keep track of teamwork and tasks, Planner is a great option. Plus, if you already gave a M365 subscription, then you already have Planner and can get working immediately.
Access Microsoft Planner
- Go to office.com
- Log into your Microsoft 365 portal using your email address and password.
- Click the App Launcher in the top left-hand corner.
- Select Planner from the application list.
Tour the Interface
The Hub
The hub is the first page we arrive on when we load up Planner. On the left-hand side, we have a menu where we can create a brand new plan, get back to the hub or see just the tasks that are assigned to us.
- Click Hub to see all existing plans.
Plans in the hub are organized into three groups: Recent, All, and Pinned.
The Recent list will show all plans we've recently accessed, All will show all existing plans, and Pinned will show any plans we've chosen to pin to the top of the list. In general, we pin plans that we use frequently.
- Click Assigned to me.
This section shows any tasks that have been assigned to us by ourselves or other people. It's a quick way of accessing and viewing just the tasks that we need to act on.
Settings
- Click the cog icon in the top right-hand corner.
This opens up Settings. From here we can check our license, change our notification settings, send feedback to Microsoft, change the theme, change our language and timezone, change our password and update our contact preferences.
Help
- Click the question mark icon in the top right-hand corner.
This gives us access to the help files if we are looking for guidance on how to execute a specific task.
Account Settings
- Click on your profile photo in the top right-hand corner.
From here we can access our account details and settings.
The Plan Interface
Open an Existing Plan
- Click on an existing plan to load it into the main window.
Plan Views
We can view a plan in three different ways: Board, Charts, or Schedule.
Board view is the default view and the view we work in most frequently. It shows the cards for each task organized into buckets (if we've set them up). We can see the basic details of the task displayed on the card and can click on the card to make changes and see the full details.
Charts view gives us a visual overview of our plan. It shows different charts that summarize some key indicators in the plan such as the number of tasks that are in progress and completed, the number of tasks assigned to buckets, etc.
Schedule view shows our tasks displayed on a calendar based on the tasks' start and end dates. It gives us a high-level overview and allows us to easily see tasks that overlap, task durations, and when projects are going to finish. Tasks can be color coded to group them visually in the calendar.
Members
We can see who is a member of this plan by clicking the members button in the top right-hand corner. We can add members from here by typing someone's name or email address into the search bar at the top.
Members have access to the plan and can view/edit tasks.
Filters
The Filters button lets us filter our tasks based on whatever criteria we select from the list. This can be helpful for large plans with many tasks as we can cut through the noise and see only what's of importance to us.
We can filter tasks by due date, priority, progress, label, bucket, assignment, and much more.
Group By
The Group By button lets us choose how to group tasks in our plan. We can group by bucket, assigned to, progress, due date, labels, and priority.
What we choose to group by affects the buckets displayed in Board view.
Privacy Settings
When we create a plan, it can be set to public or private. Private plans are only viewable by plan members we invite.
- Click the i icon on the plan photo to check the privacy.
Hints & tips
- In Planner, look for the three dots to access more options.
- 00:03 Microsoft Planner is an application
- 00:06 available as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription.
- 00:10 It's used for organizing individual or team tasks in a collaborative,
- 00:15 user-friendly environment.
- 00:17 In Microsoft Planner, we can keep track of tasks,
- 00:21 organize them into buckets, add labels, track progress,
- 00:25 create subtasks, assign tasks to other people, and monitor task progress.
- 00:31 And there is a lot more that we can do in Microsoft Planner
- 00:34 than those things I've just mentioned.
- 00:36 And the best thing about Planner is that we can do all of this in an easy-to-use
- 00:40 interactive dashboard style interface.
- 00:43 And because Microsoft Planner effectively is part of Microsoft 365 and
- 00:47 lives in the cloud, it means that we can download the Planner app and
- 00:51 manage our tasks and to-do lists when we're on the go.
- 00:55 All we need is an active Internet connection.
- 00:57 And another advantage of Microsoft Planner being part of Microsoft 365
- 01:02 is that it easily integrates with other Microsoft 365 applications,
- 01:07 like SharePoint, OneNote, or even Teams.
- 01:10 So if you just want a simple-to-use application to keep track of individual or
- 01:16 team tasks, then Microsoft Planner will be an excellent choice for you.
- 01:21 Plus, if you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription,
- 01:24 then Planner is already included, and you can get up and running straight away.
- 01:29 So before we dive into the content, let's take a quick tour around the interface,
- 01:33 and get ourselves familiar with the different parts of Planner.
- 01:36 Now, we access Planner through our Microsoft 365 portal.
- 01:40 I've already logged into mine, we just need to click the app launcher in the top
- 01:45 left-hand corner, and then we can choose Planner from the list of applications.
- 01:50 And Planner will open in a brand new web browser, and
- 01:53 this is the screen you're going to be presented with.
- 01:56 Bear in mind, it might look slightly different if this is the first time that
- 02:00 you're logging into Planner.
- 02:01 You're probably not going to see anything just here because you haven't created any
- 02:05 plans yet.
- 02:05 Now, I have a few plans just to make this easier for
- 02:09 you to see where everything lives on this homepage.
- 02:12 So if we cast our eyes over to the left-hand side of the screen,
- 02:15 you can see that we have this menu running down the side.
- 02:18 At the top, this is where we can create a brand new plan from scratch.
- 02:22 The Hub is effectively our homepage, the page that we're looking at now,
- 02:26 which gives us an overview of our various different plans.
- 02:29 And then I have an Assigned to me section.
- 02:31 So this is where I can come if I quickly want to find any tasks across
- 02:36 different plans that have been assigned to me specifically,
- 02:40 either by myself or other people.
- 02:42 Now, if we jump back to the Hub,
- 02:44 this is where you're going to see the plans that I have already in progress.
- 02:48 And we have two sections, we have a Pinned section, and
- 02:51 then we have Recent at the bottom.
- 02:53 And Pinned works exactly the same as other Microsoft applications.
- 02:57 If there is a plan that we find ourselves using frequently,
- 03:00 we can make it easier to see and find by simply pinning it to this area.
- 03:04 And you can see on the left-hand side, we also have a Pinned section just here.
- 03:09 So currently, I have the plan Northwind Traders Marketing pinned to my hub.
- 03:15 And then underneath that, I can see all of the rest of
- 03:18 the plans that I've either created or have access to.
- 03:21 Now, right at the bottom of this left-hand panel,
- 03:24 you can see this is where we can come to get the Planner app.
- 03:27 So if you want to manage, organize, monitor your tasks when you're on the go,
- 03:31 then you're going to need to download the app for your mobile.
- 03:34 So if we click on Get the Planner app,
- 03:36 we can basically get a download link sent to our email address.
- 03:40 Once we have it on our phone, it's a simple case of following the link and
- 03:44 downloading the application, and everything will synchronize.
- 03:48 So what you're doing in Planner on your desktop will synchronize in the mobile
- 03:52 version, so everything is always kept up to date.
- 03:55 If we cast our eyes to the top right-hand corner, we have three controls.
- 04:00 The first thing you can see here is my profile photo, and if we click on that,
- 04:04 this is where you can come for your basic account management.
- 04:07 I can take a look at my Microsoft 365 account settings, and
- 04:10 I can take a look at My Office profile.
- 04:13 The next button along is the Help button.
- 04:16 So if I'm looking for how to do something particular in Microsoft Planner,
- 04:21 I can simply search for it in here.
- 04:23 And then finally, we have the cog icon, which is where we go to access
- 04:27 our settings that are individual to add copy of Planner.
- 04:30 And of course,
- 04:31 we're going to take a look at this in more detail a bit later on in this section.
- 04:35 Now, if you want to open up a plan, all you need to do is click on the plan name.
- 04:40 So I can either do that from the left-hand menu, or
- 04:43 I can do it from this main hub page just here.
- 04:45 So if I click to jump into Northwind Traders Marketing,
- 04:49 this is where you can see all of the tasks that I have in my plan.
- 04:54 Now, notice here that I'm currently in Board view.
- 04:57 And we have three different ways that we can view our task list, Board,
- 05:01 Charts, and Schedule.
- 05:03 And Board view is generally where I work when I'm adding my tasks into a schedule.
- 05:08 You can see that I have my tasks organized into different buckets,
- 05:11 that's what we call these different categories.
- 05:13 And if I want to see more details on a task, I simply click to open it up.
- 05:18 So it's all very straightforward.
- 05:20 If we jump into Charts view, I get a completely different way of
- 05:25 looking at the overall progress of my project.
- 05:28 I get my tasks represented in charts and graphs, so
- 05:32 I can see key metrics at a glance.
- 05:34 And then finally, we have Schedule view.
- 05:37 And this is where we can see the project listed out in the calendar.
- 05:42 So if I go back to August, where the main bulk of this project was scheduled,
- 05:46 you can see I have different things added into my calendar.
- 05:49 So those are the main points you need to know when it comes to that main Planner
- 05:54 hub, and also when you jump into a plan, the different views that you can use.
- 05:59 Now, we understand that, it's time to move on to the next lesson.
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