Microsoft Planner: Managing Group Projects

Introduction

• In this video, we’ll cover the basics of how to use Microsoft Planner to manage keeping track of group projects. Specifically, I’ll cover:
  • how to access Microsoft Planner and find your plans,
  • how to create a new plan and add tasks to it,
  • how to control who can see and use a plan,
  • and how Microsoft Planner is connected to Microsoft Teams.
  • We’ll also explore the various views and filters available in Microsoft Planner.
• However, as a quick heads-up, we won’t be covering project management methods or best practices in this recording – we’ll be focusing on the basics of using Microsoft Planner.
• With all that said, let’s get started by learning a little more about Microsoft Planner.

About Microsoft Planner

• Microsoft Planner is part of the unified tasks system in Microsoft 365, which includes apps like Planner, To Do, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and even integrates with Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
• Microsoft Planner helps with project management by giving you a place to keep track of group projects and their individual tasks.
• While Planner works best when used in conjunction with a team in Microsoft Teams, you can also use it on its own without connecting a plan to a team.

Accessing Microsoft Planner

• There are a couple of different ways of accessing Microsoft Planner.
  • First, you can access Planner through the Microsoft 365 at IU page, at office.iu.edu – I’ll demonstrate how to do this as we get started with using Microsoft Planner.
  • You can also access Planner by visiting tasks.office.com in a web browser.
  • Additionally, you can also install the Microsoft Planner app on your mobile device.
• Let’s see how to access Planner through the Microsoft 365 at IU page.
  • To start, in a web browser, go to microsoft.iu.edu.
  • Then, near the top of the page under the Microsoft 365 heading, click on the Access Microsoft 365 button.
  • At this point, the Microsoft login screen will load. This looks different than the typical IU Login screen you may be used to.
  • Here, you’ll enter your IU email address to log in – specifically, you’ll log in with your username at iu.edu, instead of at indiana.edu or another campus-specific email address. Once you’ve typed in your email address, click the Next button, then enter your passphrase and click the Sign in button.
  • At this point, you may be asked to authenticate with Duo – since I did that recently, I’m brought right to the Microsoft 365 landing page.
  • From here, in the navigation on the left side of the page, click on Apps.
  • The Apps page will load – to show all apps, underneath the right side of the icon tiles underneath the Apps heading, click on All apps. All the Microsoft 365 apps that are available to us will display.
  • To open Microsoft Planner, click on the Planner tile. Depending on what size your screen is, you may need to scroll down a little to see the Planner tile.
  • Once you click on the Planner tile, a new tab will open in your browser and Planner will load.

Exploring the Planner interface

• Let’s take a look at the Planner interface before we get into creating a plan.
• On the left side of the screen is the navigation pane. Here, we can create a new plan, visit the Planner Hub, and view tasks that are assigned to you, as well as access all the plans you’re a member of.
• The main part of the screen will either display the active plan or the Hub, depending on what you select in the navigation pane.
• When we load Microsoft Planner, the Planner Hub is displayed by default. The Hub gives you an overview of all the plans you’re a member of, and also allows easy access to plans you use frequently.
  • At the top of the hub, we have our pinned plans, and underneath the pinned plans, we can access all the plans we’re a member of by clicking on either the Recent, Recommended, or All tabs.
  • To pin a plan, point to the card for a specific plan. As you point to the card, the Pin icon will display near the top right corner of the card – click on it to pin the card to the Pinned section of the Planner Hub.
  • To unpin a plan, in the Pinned section of the Planner Hub, point to the plan’s card. The Unpin icon will appear near the upper right corner of the card – click on it to unpin the plan. The plan’s card will disappear from the Pinned section of the Planner Hub – however, you’ll still be able to access it from the Recent or All tabs at the bottom of the Hub page.

Creating a new plan

• Now that we’re familiar with the Planner hub and how to find our plans, let’s see how to create a new plan. There are two ways to do this: you can create a plan that’s connected to a team in Microsoft Teams, or a stand-alone plan.
• The choice between a plan connected to a team and a stand-alone plan mainly depends on who’s involved in the project you’re tracking.
  • If you’re tracking a project that involves only members of an existing team in Microsoft Teams, you’ll want to create a connected plan. This way, everyone in the team will automatically have access to the plan, and you can add the plan to a channel for easier access.
    • One thing to note here is that plans can’t be added to private or shared channels, only standard channels.
  • If you’re working on a project that involves people from multiple areas who aren’t all members of the same team in Microsoft Teams, or if you want to create a plan that’s only accessible by a few select people, you’ll want to make a stand-alone plan. With stand-alone plans, you can manually add people to the plan, and only the people you add will be able to access it.

Creating a plan to use with a team in Microsoft Teams

• Let’s go ahead and create a plan that’s part of a team. This is a two-part process – first we’ll create the plan in Planner, then shift to Microsoft Teams to add the plan to a channel.
  • To start, at the top of the navigation pane on the left side of the screen, click on New plan.
  • A collection of plan templates will display. Here, you can select a template if desired, or click on New Blank Plan to create an empty plan. For today, I’ll click on New Blank Plan.
  • The New blank plan screen appears. Here, we can give our plan a title, add it to an existing group – or, in other words, a team – and change the privacy settings.
  • The first thing I’ll do here is name my plan. For demonstration purposes, I’ll name my plan Spring Conference Planning.
  • I want to add the plan to the team IU-UITS-TeamsCollab, so I’ll click the Add to existing group drop-down, and in the list that appears, I’ll scroll until I see the team I want to add the plan to. Once I see the team in the list, I’ll click on it.
  • Once I choose a team to add the plan to, the Privacy and Sensitivity drop-down is greyed out. This is because the plan will inherit the security options from the team I’m adding it to.
  • I’ll talk a little more about the Privacy and Sensitivity drop-down when I demonstrate creating a stand-alone plan.
  • Once the plan has a name and I’ve chosen what team to add it to, I’ll click the Create button to finish creating the plan.
• Once the plan is created, it will load in the main area of the Planner window where we previously saw the Planner Hub.

Adding a plan to a channel in a team

• Now that the plan is created, we can add it to a channel that’s part of the team you created it in. To do this, we’ll need to switch over to Microsoft Teams – I'll open it in my browser, but the process will be the same whether you’re using the web version or desktop app.
  • Once in Microsoft Teams, I’ll navigate to the team we added the channel to by clicking on Teams in the App bar on the left side of the screen, then clicking on the team’s name in the list of teams.
  • Next, I’ll navigate to the channel I want to add the plan to. For today’s demonstration, I’ll add the plan to the Project Planning channel, so I’ll click on that channel in the channel list.
  • To add the plan to the channel, to the right to the navigation tabs at the top of the screen, I’ll click on Add a tab – it looks like a plus sign.
  • The Add a tab screen will display – to add the plan, you’ll first need to search for the app Tasks by Planner and To Do. It may already be displayed in the list of apps at the top of the screen, but if it’s not showing, in the search bar, type “tasks” and press the Enter key to search for Tasks by Planner and To Do. The icon for the app will show up at the top of the screen – from here, click on the Tasks by Planner and To Do icon to continue.
  • The Tasks by Planner and To Do dialog box appears. Here, we can create a new plan or add an existing plan to the channel. Since I have a plan I want to add, I’ll click the radio button for Use an existing plan from this team. Then, I’ll click on the Existing plans drop-down and choose the Spring Conference Planning plan from the list that appears.
  • If we want to notify members of the team that the channel has been added, we can leave the checkbox next to “Post to the channel about this tab” checked – I’ll leave it checked for today’s demonstration.
  • To finish adding the plan to the channel, click the Save button.
• Once the plan has been added to the channel, a tab for the plan will appear at the top of the screen with the other navigation tabs, and the new plan will load.
• Any changes we make to the plan in Microsoft Teams will be visible when we view the plan through Microsoft Planner, and changes made in Planner will be visible when viewing the plan through the Microsoft Teams app.

Creating a stand-alone plan

• I’m going to switch back over to Microsoft Planner now, and talk about creating stand-alone plans before we get into setting up a plan for a project.
• Stand-alone plans work best for projects that involve people from many different groups who aren’t all members of the same team in Microsoft Teams.
• Stand-alone plans also work well for small groups where a few select individuals need to be a member of a plan.
• The process for making a stand-alone plan is similar to making a plan that’s attached to a team. I’ll start by clicking on New plan at the top of the navigation pane, then I’ll click on New Blank Plan.
• Next, I’ll give the plan a name – for this one, I’ll call it Event Planning Example.
• Since I won’t be adding the plan to a team, I’ll skip over the Add to existing group drop-down.
• In the Privacy and Sensitivity drop down, we’ll choose the privacy level for the plan. We can set a plan to public or private.
  • Setting a plan to public means that anyone at Indiana University will be able to access your plan, while setting a plan to private means only members you add will be able to access it.
  • By default, a plan’s privacy is set to Private – I'd suggest keeping it at that privacy setting, unless there’s a specific reason you want to have a publicly available plan.
• To finish creating the plan, click the Create button. After a moment, the new plan will load.
• Once the plan is created, we can add members to it.
  • To do that, near the upper right side of the Planner interface, click on Members.
  • A drop-down menu will appear. To search for someone to add to the group, in the Enter name to add a member field, type in the name or username of the person you want to add to the group. I want to add Diane Dell to the plan, so I’ll search for her by her username, which is demo33. When the person you’re looking for shows up in the list that appears below the field, click on their name to add them to the plan.
  • Repeat this process to add more members to the plan.

Setting up a plan

• Now that we have a plan, we can set it up to help us keep track of a project. The process of setting up a plan is the same for both stand-alone plans and plans that are part of a team.
• Before we start, let’s talk about the two main components of a plan – tasks and buckets.
  • Tasks are the individual things we want people to complete – in Planner, they appear as cards with the task information on them.
  • All tasks are contained inside buckets. We can create as many buckets as needed to organize tasks in whatever way makes sense for the project we’re keeping track of.
    • For example, if you’re keeping track of training development, you could have buckets labeled “incoming topic”, “researching”, and “creating”.
    • For the conference planning plan I’m working on today, I’ll create buckets for the main conference planning areas I want to keep track of: Programming, Marketing, Hospitality, and Publications.
  • I’m going to switch over to the Spring Conference Planning plan I made earlier by clicking on it under the All heading in the navigation pane, then start adding buckets to the plan.
    • By default, every new plan comes with a To do bucket – I’ll rename this bucket to Programming. To do this, click on the bucket’s name – in my case, I’ll click on To do – the name will turn into an editable text entry field. I’ll press and drag to select the existing text, then type in Programming and press the Enter key.
    • Next, I’ll add the new buckets for the other categories I need to make. To create a new bucket, to the right of the last bucket – for me, that’s Programming – click on the text Add new bucket. The text will turn into the Bucket name text entry field – I’ll type in the name, Marketing, and then press the Enter key on my keyboard.
    • I’ll repeat this for the last two buckets I need to add, Hospitality and Publications.
  • Now that we have buckets, we’re ready to add tasks to them.
    • The first task I’ll add will be in the Programming bucket. While there’s already a new task card open for me, to add a task to a bucket, under the bucket’s name, click on Add task and the new task card will appear.
    • To name the task, click in the Enter a task name field and type the task’s name. For me that’ll be Call for proposals.
    • To set a due date for the task, if desired, click on Set due date – a calendar will appear. Select a date on the calendar by clicking on it.
    • To assign the task to someone, click on Assign – a list of team members will appear, and there’s a field where you can search for a specific person as well. I’ll click inside the Type a name or email address field, then type in demo32 to search for Carol Cape. When she appears in the list, I’ll click on her name to add her to the task.
    • If desired, I could add more people to the task by repeating the process – for now, I’ll stop at adding Carol.
    • To finish creating the new task, I’ll click on Add task at the bottom of the task card.
    • I’ll also add a task to the Publications bucket – this one will be named Design conference program. Just like before, I’ll click on Add task at the top of the bucket I want to add the task to, then type Design conference program in the Enter a task name field and press the Enter key on my keyboard to finish creating the task.
    • I want to add some more details to this task, like a list of sub-tasks and a priority level. To do this, I’ll click away from the bucket I’m in to hide the Add task card, then I’ll click on the task I want to add details to. For me, that’ll be the Design conference program task.
      • The task details are now visible. Here, we can change the priority level and progress of the task, change the start and end date, set a recurrence for the task, and add notes. We can also add a checklist and attach files to the task here.
      • I’ll start by setting the priority level for this task to Important – to do this, I’ll click on the Priority drop-down, and in the menu that appears, I’ll click on Important.
      • Next, I’ll add items to the checklist for the smaller sub-tasks that will need to be completed as part of the task. To do this, I’ll scroll down until I see the Checklist heading, then click where it says Add an item. A text entry field will appear, and I’ll type the first item in the list here, which will be “get welcome letter from conference chair”, then press the Enter key to move to the next item in the list.
      • I’ll continue adding items as needed until everything is added to the list. As a heads-up, you can add a maximum of 20 items to a checklist in a task.
    • Next, I’ll attach a file to this task. I have a file on my computer named Conference Committee members.docx that I want to add to this task, as I’ll need it in order to finish designing the conference program.
      • To attach a file to a task, scroll down until the Attachments heading is visible, then click on the Add attachment button. In the list that appears, click on the type of attachment you want to add – you can upload a file from your computer, choose a file that’s been uploaded to a team in Microsoft Teams, or add a link to a webpage.
      • I’ll click on From computer to choose a file on my computer, then I’ll navigate to where the file is located and double-click on it to select it. The attachment will upload, and will now be accessible from the task.
    • One thing I want to point out here is that by default, when adding a checklist or an attachment to a task, the added item will display on the task’s card. To turn this off, to the right of the item heading – for me, that’s the Checklist heading – uncheck the checkbox next to Show on card to stop displaying it on the task’s card.
    • Now that I’ve attached the file, I can mark off the subtask for getting the conference committee list. To do this, I’ll check the radio button to the left of the checklist item I completed.
    • Checking off a checklist item won’t change the progress status of a task, however. To indicate that I’ve made progress on the task, I’ll scroll back up to the top of the task and click on the Progress drop-down menu, then click on In Progress in the menu that appears.
    • When I’m done editing a task’s details, I can close the task detail view by clicking the Close button in the upper right corner of the detail view.

Exploring views and filters

• Let’s take some time to explore how views and filters work. I’ve added some additional tasks to the Spring Conference Planning plan to help better illustrate how views and filters work.
• First, we’ll look at the different views available in Planner. Views allow us to see the tasks on a plan in different ways, which can be helpful when figuring out project timelines or seeing the overall progress of a project.
• We can change the view by clicking on the view’s name to the right of the plan name, up at the top of the screen.
  • The default view for a plan is Board In board view, tasks are arranged in buckets, and we can change how our plans are grouped by using the Group By drop-down menu.
    • For example, we can group tasks in buckets based on their progress by selecting Progress in the Group By menu...
    • … or group tasks by priority level by selecting Priority.
    • I’ll switch back to grouping tasks by bucket before moving on.
  • Grid view shows us the tasks on our plan in a format that looks similar to a spreadsheet. You can change who a task is assigned to and other details for a task by clicking on the drop-down in the appropriate column.
  • Charts view shows you the overall status of the project’s progress, with a more detailed breakdown of information about the project in a number of different charts.
  • Schedule view lets us view our scheduled tasks on a calendar. Tasks that only have a due date will show on the date they’re due, while tasks that have a start and due date will span however many days the task is scheduled for. Unscheduled tasks appear in a column to the right of the calendar, to make it easy to find tasks that may need scheduling.
• Now, let’s look at how to use filters. I’ll switch back to Board view for this part, so you can see how the filters work a little better.
• Filters allow us to show tasks that only meet specific criteria. For example, I can use a filter to show me all tasks marked with Urgent and Important priority levels that haven’t been started yet. Let’s see how to do this.
  • To view the list of filters, near the upper right side of the Planner window, click on the Filter drop-down menu. Right now, there’s a zero in parentheses next to the word Filter – this indicates that we have no filters applied right now.
  • To filter by priority, I’ll expand the Priority category by clicking on it, then click on Urgent and Important to filter by those priority levels. Five tasks are visible now – four in Programming, and one in Publications, which is partly obscured by the Filter menu.
  • Next, I’ll click on the Progress category to expand it, and click on Not started to show me tasks that haven’t been started yet. The task in the Publications bucket disappears, because that task is already in progress.
  • Now I’m only seeing the tasks that are marked important and urgent that haven’t been started yet.
  • To remove the filters and view all tasks in the plan, at the top of the Filter menu, I’ll click on Clear.
  • Now all the tasks are visible again.

Wrapping up

Now we know how to use Microsoft Planner to create a plan to keep track of a group project. To learn more about other Microsoft 365 applications, like Microsoft Teams, To Do, and more, visit IT Training’s Microsoft 365 page at ittraining.iu.edu/m365.