Microsoft annouce Office 365 Planner release

Microsoft have announced the release of their own project management tool for teams using Office 365 named Planner.

The preview was initially released in December 2015. The tool is now being to be rolled out across the world to all Office 365 users. These include those who use Office 365 Enterprise E1-E5, Business Essentials, Premium and even its Education subscription plan.

Planner by Microsoft has been described as a tool that ‘makes it easy for you team to create plans, organise and assign jobs, share files and chat between employees about work updates.’

The tool can be used to set due dates for projects and users will instantly receive an email notification alerting them that a task has been assigned to them. When a plan is created within the tool an Office 365 group is automatically created and users have the ability to create public or private groups.

One of the most valuable aspects of Planner is that it helps teams organise their work visually. Each plan has its own Board, and within each Board, each work item or task is represented by a Card that can have due dates, attachments, categories and conversations associated with it. Team members receive an email notification whenever they are assigned a new Card or added to a conversation.

To access Planner, users simply need to open their Office 365 app launcher. Since it appears right within the launcher, it will not have to be configured or approved by Office 365 administrators and users of the service can immediately begin using the new tool which is easily accessible to all.

While Planner is a work management solution that helps teams of information workers better organise and manage teamwork visually, it is a new system which we should be learnt through practice. Practical experience with this will only benefit you and your business in the long term.

In the coming months it will be receiving new features such as the ability to assign a task to multiple users, external user access, plan templates, customizable boards and its own app for Windows Phone, Android and iOS.

If you need any help with learning how to use Office 365 Planner for your business, school or charity, please feel free to drop us an email at hello@clearcloudservices.co.uk.