MS Planner is a simple-to-use task management and work tracking tool that works with MS Teams to help you collaborate on work and make sure it gets done on time. |
Microsoft Planner (also known as "Tasks by Planner and To Do") is a task management service that is part of UW Office 365.
Planner is also Microsoft's intended replacement for Project Online, Project Server, and Project for the Web; as of the launch of Planner and Planner Premium at UW, Project Online/Server and Project for the Web is no longer supported.
Instead, use Microsoft Planner to create new plans, projects, and task lists.
Licensing / Planner Premium
Microsoft Planner's basic features are available to all UW staff, students, and faculty with a UW Office 365 license at no additional charge.
Planner Premium, which includes features like enterprise project management, resource management, and other other functionality expected for formalized project management, is available to license from UWare. Please visit the UWare page to learn more about Planner Premium licensing costs.
Microsoft also has a handy help article that goes in-depth on which features are available via Planner Free vs Planner Premium, which you can read by clicking here.
NOTE : Planner Plan 3 and 5 licenses are the same as Project Plan 3 and 5 licenses; if you have existing Project Plan 3/5 licenses, you will automatically have access to the appropriate Planner Premium features, without having to purchase new/additional licenses.
Who Needs a Premium License?
Only users who are creating Premium-featured projects/plans, editing or modifying Premium plans, or managing resources will need Premium licenses. Users who simply need to view a Plan or Task List, or who only need to report progress against tasks in a plan, do not need Premium licenses. They will, however, need UW Office 365 licenses to access these basic features.
Creating a Plan
To create new Plans within Planner, you'll need to have an existing 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:
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:
Create and assign a task to an individual/owner
Individual/owner adds a comment to the task
Anyone else who wants an email notification of any future comments will also need to leave a comment on the task
All subsequent comments will now email a notification to the individual that a new comment was made
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:
Project Online is a heavy-duty enterprise project management system that is intended for large-scale organizational project planning and tracking that involves some level of detailed resource management. In plain words: Project Online is the Ferrari of PM tools, intended for the kinds of organizations and projects that require detailed management of time and effort spent on work.
Meanwhile, Planner Premium is a lightweight, cloud-based task planning and management tool that makes it easier for small- to mid-size teams to collaborate on shared tasks, as well as plan out those tasks and get visibility into how their work fits into larger organizational goals. Basically, Planner Premium not only helps you break out your projects into specific and defined tasks and sub-tasks, but it also helps teams schedule those tasks and communicate task progress both throughout a team and upwards to decision-makers. It also integrates natively with MS Teams and other cloud-based O365 tools in a way that Project does not.
Planner Premium is launching first (on 6/25) for teams that are already using Project Online / Project for the Web via Project Plan 3 / Plan 5 licenses. If your team already has Plan 3/5 licenses, you can assign them to users as you wish to give them access to create Premium plans. Additional licenses are planned to be available for purchase in July/August 2025, which is when new users will be able to start using the tool.
Yes! Any user who has a UW Office 365 license gets the Planner Basic license for free, and Planner Basic allows users to view and report work against tasks in a Premium plan. Basic users won't be able to create Premium plans, and some plan editing features won't be available without a Plan 3/5 license.
Planner Premium is planned to be available broadly to UW users who wish to purchase licenses in July/August 2025. In other words, once licenses are available for purchase on UWare, Planner Premium will be available throughout UW.
In short: nothing. What used to be called 'Project Plan 3 / Plan 5' is now called 'Planner and Project Plan 3 / Plan 5'. That means the same license grants access both to Planner Premium AND to Project Online.
Yes, however: it is strongly recommended that teams using Project Online begin discussing transitioning their operations to Planner Premium. Although Project Online has no official end-of-service date from Microsoft, they intend Planner Premium to replace Project Online and are in the process of moving features from Project Online into Planner Premium. UW-IT cannot guarantee that Project Online features your team currently uses for critical processes will continue to be supported indefinitely.
If you're interested in transitioning from Project Online to Planner Premium, please reach out to your department / division leadership to begin discussing what a transition to Planner might look like for your team. We do not recommend transitioning project operations from Project Online to Planner Premium without a transition plan in place.