Access a Plan from Microsoft Teams

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About this lesson

Create a new team in Microsoft Teams based off of an existing Outlook group plan.

Quick reference

Access a Plan from Microsoft Teams

Add a plan from Planner to a tab in a Microsoft Teams channel. 

When to use

We can add our plan to a Teams channel whenever we want to make it easy for plan members to collaborate on and view the plan in the same place where team conversations and collaboration takes place. It prevents the need to constantly switch between applications. 

Instructions

Planner is part of Microsoft 365 so it integrates well with other applications like Microsoft Teams. 

Microsoft Teams allows us to stay in touch and collaborate with our colleagues through chat, audio and video meetings, and other collaboration tools. 

Using Planner, we can create a plan and make that plan visible in a Microsoft Teams channel so everything is in one place. 

Create a Team based on an Existing Group

When we created a plan in Planner, a Microsoft 365 group was already created. We can use this existing group to create a new team in Microsoft Teams with the same settings. 

  • Open Microsoft Teams (if you have it). 
  • Click on Join or create a team. 
  • Click From a group or team.
  • Click Microsoft 365 group.
  • Select the group that relates to the plan from the list. 
  • Click Create.   

This will create a new team in Teams with the same settings as the group. This includes plan members. 

  • Expand the new team. 

Notice there is a default channel called General. We can add more channels if required. 

Add a Plan to a Teams Channel

At the top of every channel in Teams, we have tabs. The default tabs are Posts, Files, and Wiki. We can add a tab to display the plan from Planner. 

  • Click the + symbol at the top to add a tab. 
  • Search for the tab Tasks by Planner and To Do.
  • Click Use an existing plan from this team. 
  • Click the drop-down arrow and select the plan. 
  • Click Save. 

A new tab will be added at the top of the channel with the same name as the plan. When we click on this tab, we can see the plan from Planner in the same place as our team conversations. 

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  • 00:04 When creating project plans in Microsoft Planner,
  • 00:07 we can really take advantage of all of the utilities that we have in Microsoft 365.
  • 00:13 And a really popular application,
  • 00:15 particularly over the last couple of years, is Microsoft Teams.
  • 00:18 We use Microsoft Teams to stay in touch with our colleagues, collaborate on files,
  • 00:23 and also host and attend meetings.
  • 00:25 Now, it might be that your team spends a large portion of their day working with
  • 00:29 their Microsoft Teams.
  • 00:30 It would be a really good idea to be able to display all of the tasks within
  • 00:34 the teams channel.
  • 00:36 And fortunately, we can do that very easily.
  • 00:39 Now, of course, this particular lesson that we're going to go through now,
  • 00:43 relies on the fact that you have and use Microsoft Teams.
  • 00:46 So I would say that if you don't, maybe you've never used it before in your life,
  • 00:51 then you can probably skip over this particular lesson.
  • 00:54 However, if you do use Microsoft Teams, and
  • 00:57 you think this would be a great thing to know, then keep watching.
  • 01:00 So, the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to open up Microsoft Teams.
  • 01:04 So all I need to do is click on the app launcher in the top left hand corner,
  • 01:09 and I'm going to jump across to Teams.
  • 01:12 Now what I'm essentially going to do here,
  • 01:14 is I'm going to create a brand new team for my project plan members.
  • 01:18 And if you remember, there are five of us who are members of this project plan.
  • 01:22 So from within Teams, I'm going to click, Join or Create Team at the bottom.
  • 01:27 And then I'm going to choose Create Team.
  • 01:30 Now, remember when we created our plan in Planner,
  • 01:34 it automatically creates for us a Microsoft 365 group of the same name.
  • 01:39 So if I want to copy across all of those settings and the members,
  • 01:43 I can simply create my new team in Microsoft Teams from a group or team.
  • 01:48 I'm going to choose an existing Microsoft 365 group.
  • 01:52 And now if we scroll through, you can see right at the bottom there is the group,
  • 01:57 Software Development Project.
  • 01:59 So let's click on it and choose Create.
  • 02:02 So this now creates a brand new team within Microsoft Teams, and
  • 02:05 you can see it listed on the left hand side right at the bottom.
  • 02:09 Now, when we create a new team in Teams,
  • 02:11 it automatically gives us a default channel called general.
  • 02:15 So it might be that you want to go in and add more channels, that's absolutely fine.
  • 02:18 But in this demonstration, we're just going to work in that general channel.
  • 02:22 Now, just to check that those settings, and
  • 02:24 the members have come across correctly,
  • 02:26 I'm going to click the three dots next to the team name, and go into Manage Team.
  • 02:30 And there am I as the owner.
  • 02:32 And if I expand members and guests,
  • 02:34 those are the other members of this particular project plan.
  • 02:38 So, everything's come across nicely and I've saved a lot of time.
  • 02:42 So now that my plan members have their own team in Microsoft Teams,
  • 02:46 we can start having conversations.
  • 02:48 We can share files, we can conduct meetings, all of that good stuff.
  • 02:52 But we still need to bring across the plan in planner, so
  • 02:56 that everybody can view it in teams.
  • 02:58 And the way that we do this, is that we add a new tab in Teams, and
  • 03:03 tabs located at the top next to the channel name.
  • 03:06 Then you will have some default tabs in here.
  • 03:08 You can see I have posts.
  • 03:10 This is in general, where we have conversations.
  • 03:12 And then I have a Files tab as well.
  • 03:15 Now, if I click the plus next to this,
  • 03:17 it's going to allow me to add a tab of a specific type.
  • 03:21 And we're effectively adding a little app just here.
  • 03:24 So to make this a little bit quicker, I'm going to go to the search bar, and
  • 03:28 I'm going to search for planner.
  • 03:29 And there it is.
  • 03:30 I'm going to choose tasks by planner and to do.
  • 03:33 Let's add that in as a new tab.
  • 03:36 So here I can choose to create a new plan, or
  • 03:39 I can use an existing plan from this team.
  • 03:42 So it says, looks like this team has existing plans.
  • 03:46 So it's recognizing that the team is related to a plan in planner.
  • 03:51 So what I'm going to do here, is I'm going to say, use an existing plan.
  • 03:54 When I click the drop down, there it is.
  • 03:56 Lets select it.
  • 03:57 I'm going to say, yes, I want to post to the channel about this new tab.
  • 04:02 I'm going to click on Save.
  • 04:04 And now look what happens.
  • 04:06 I have a brand new tab of the top called software development project, and
  • 04:10 now I can view all of those tasks from Microsoft Planner.
  • 04:14 So my team can have chats related to this project in the posts area.
  • 04:19 We can share files, but we can also view and update our plan.
  • 04:24 So it keeps everything all together in one place, and
  • 04:26 it means we're not switching around to different applications all the time.
  • 04:31 Notice that because I chose to post about this to the team's channel,
  • 04:35 I now have this little message in here from me just letting the team know that
  • 04:40 I've added this plan to a new tab.

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