Not a project management tool just a simple to-do list.
April 30, 2025

Not a project management tool just a simple to-do list.

Brandon Stokes | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is a software program integrated into the Microsoft Suite and costs no additional funds to use. Once logged into our Okta instance, we have access to MS Planner. Recently, we were mandated to move away from monday.com for project management software, and our Corporate IT team suggested we replace it with MS Planner. After extensive research and experimentation, we quickly found that MS Planner is an inferior planning tool and is certainly not a project management tool. It is a very elementary task list... and I mean *really* elementary. I prefer to use sticky notes at my desk rather than MS Planner. In short, there are very few use cases for a sophisticated SaaS business to use MS Planner.

Pros

  • Friendly UI.
  • Integration with Outlook.
  • Simple to-do list.

Cons

  • Customizations of any kind.
  • Grouping of items in grid view.
  • Timeline column instead of start date/end date.
  • Savable templates.
  • Not a project management tool.
  • Positive: a personal to-do list already incorporated in MS Suite.
  • Negative: because of poor functionality, we must invest time finding another tool.
Although the UI is friendly and easy to use, MS Planner feels like a Microsoft afterthought, simply serving as a gateway to encourage people to purchase MS Project. Even the colors used in the Labels field feel very 1999. Simply put, MS Planner lacks too many necessary functions and fields to be a valuable enterprise tool.
Our organization chose MS Planner because it is an included tool in the MS Suite, and since we are unfortunately replacing our current and much better project management tool due to a consolidation of the tech stack. However, it doesn't appear that any of the teams using the current program intend to use MS Planner due to its poor functionality. We will likely be pivoting to Jira instead.

Do you think Microsoft Planner delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Planner's feature set?

No

Did Microsoft Planner live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Microsoft Planner go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Microsoft Planner again?

No

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.

Comments

  • Brandon Stokes | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Brandon Stokes
    commented 8 months ago
    Edit to final paragraph There are few examples... as in not many.

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