• Overview
• Creating a Plan
• Accessing Planner
• Unable to add a Plan to a Private Channel in a Microsoft Team
• Not receiving email notifications on task comments
• Planner Help and Training

Overview

Microsoft Planner (also known as "Tasks by Planner and To Do") is a task management service that is part of UW Office 365.

Creating a Plan

To create new Plans within Planner, you'll need to have an existing Microsoft Team or Microsoft 365 Group. Click here to request a Microsoft Team or Microsoft 365 Group The easiest way to create a new Plan is using the Microsoft Teams interface. Log in to Microsoft Teams then follow these instructions to create a new Plan (note: the app may be named "Tasks by Planner and To Do").

Accessing Planner

Only users who are owners or members of the Microsoft Team or Microsoft 365 Group a Plan was created in will be able to access the Plan. You can access Planner via:

• A browser
• The Teams interface

Unable to add a Plan to a Private Channel in a Microsoft Team

Currently, it is not possible to add a Plan to a Private Channel in a Microsoft Team, per Microsoft. If you would like to create a new, private Plan then you will want to request a new Microsoft Team or Microsoft 365 Group for it.

Not receiving email notifications on task comments

Only those who have already commented on a Planner task will receive email notifications of subsequent comments, including the owner of the task. Please refer to the Microsoft Support article Comment on tasks in Microsoft Planner for more information about the intentional design of this feature. The following steps are a workaround to ensure the assigned and/or interested individual receives email notifications of new comments on a task:

1. Create and assign a task to an individual/owner
2. Individual/owner adds a comment to the task
   1. Anyone else who wants an email notification of any future comments will also need to leave a comment on the task
3. All subsequent comments will now email a notification to the individual that a new comment was made

More information about Planner tasks:

• Manage Planner Notifications
• Reset who receives email notifications on comments for a specific task

Planner Help and Training

UW-IT is unable to provide individual or group training on how to use Planner. However, Microsoft provides a number of excellent online help and training resources:

• Planner video training
• Planner help & learning portal