Microsoft Planner is presented as a solution to organize teamwork with intuitive, collaborative, visual task management. With it, users can create Kanban boards using task cards with files, checklists, and labels. Users can collaborate in Planner and Microsoft Teams and check visual status charts—all in the Microsoft cloud.
There are a few examples where MS Planner would be suitable for employees at a mature organization. In my opinion, if you have Outlook or Teams, you already have built-in calendars and to-do lists. If you need a project management tool, you have two options: either pay for MS Project or use an alternative tool like Monday, Asana, or Jira. Regardless, their free versions are much more sophisticated than Microsoft's (MS Planner). Any team wishing to put together a halfway-decent project management board will need to look elsewhere, as MS Planner is only suitable for a personal to-do list.
It's great for everyday use, whether you adhere to the GTD regimen fully or just need a way to quickly capture and sort your tasks. However, it may be less suited if you're looking for a task manager that lets you collaborate with others or if you want to visualize your tasks in other ways, like a Gantt chart.
Would be nice to see a calendar view instead of a list view
Permissions aren't configurable, anyone can delete any task at any time and there is no recycle bin
Notifications aren't great, you have to be attached as an owner to a task to see comments and be notified of changes, and even then notifications aren't shown for a lot of things
It is a very useful tool that brings teams in sync with one another. The integration with other Microsoft products makes it an obvious choice because you don't have to purchase a license for a completely different tool that doesn't have cross-functional capabilities with the software you already use on a daily basis.
The board-and-bucket layout makes it easy to organize tasks, track progress, and prioritize work at a glance, even for first-time users. I also appreciate how Planner seamlessly integrates with tools like Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint, enabling users to collaborate, schedule tasks, and access their plans without needing to switch platforms. I also like how it’s accessible not only on desktops, but also on mobile devices.
The interface of Things was good 10 years ago, and has been refined ever since. It's lightweight, while still being readable and showing just the information you need to see. Also, something I haven't seen in any other (of my) app(s) is the keyboard shortcut/launcher, where you start typing a letter, and a dropdown menu lets you quickly jump to a view.
Many areas of the company still use Trello to organize their activities and tasks, but gradually Microsoft Planner must replace the activities. Users are often "attached" to familiar technologies, but Office 365 takes advantage of the more organized use of the tools. This year we will not renew the Trello contract.
I've tried numerous to-do apps, some that never even go out of beta. But I kept returning to Things, mostly for the user experience. It's unobtrusive and fast to use, and it looks fantastic, which is more important than I first realized. To become more organized, my app of choice needs to look organized. Also, many competing solutions are trying to force you into one way of using their app, while Things feels more open to letting you define your way of working with task management.
In my experience, productivity is negatively impacted because assigning subtasks aren't clear on Microsoft Planner
Managers aren't able to track direct reports' tasks across multiple boards -- leading to poor visibility for us
Notifications aren't always sent to inbox, so you rely on people's own project management skills to follow the communication on tasks they're assigned to. In my experience, this leads to missed deadlines impacting customer relationships.
