Microsoft Office 365 Planner is a very useful tool To help you navigate your way through it, we’ll sum up four useful facts that will let you master the tool in no time. – if you know how to use it, that is.
1. ‘Copy Plan’ and ‘Copy Task’
Copy Plan: You don’t need to recreate tasks from scratch every time. Instead, you can easily copy your plan including all tasks to a new or a different plan. How do you go about this? Just follow these steps:
- Look for the plan you want to copy.
- Click the triple-dot icon in the top right corner of the plan , then click ‘Copy Plan’.
- The window says ‘Copy of…’ by default. You can change this name, as well as the privacy settings, classification settings, and description (click ‘Options’ to do this).
- Select ‘Copy Plan’ to save your changes.
Don’t forget to add the necessary members!
Copy Task: This button lets you copy a task in the current or a new plan. If you assign the same tasks to different people or want to use them in different plans, you won’t need to enter them again every time. Follow these steps:
- Select the task you want to copy.
- Click the triple-dot icon in the top right corner and select ‘Copy Task’.
- In the window that opens, you’ll see a drop-down menu where you can select the plan to which you want to add the task.
- Click ‘Copy’ to save all your changes.
2. Exporting a plan to Excel
Have you planned a long list of tasks and do you want to analyse your plan in Excel? No problem! You can just export your plan to use Excel’s functionalities, such as sorting, filtering, alerting or sharing with people who aren’t linked to it. Excel’s functionalities also give you more options to play with your data. It only takes two steps:
- Click the triple-dot icon in the top right corner of the plan and select ‘Export Plan to Excel’.
- Click Open or Save.
That’s all!
3. Automate with Power Automate
Do you want to automatically know when Planner tasks are late, completed or assigned, so you don’t need to check all this information manually? Just automate it with Power Automate!
With the right subscription and access, you can get the most out of Planner.
Here are some examples of Power Automate templates you can use:
- Receive a message when a task is late
- Send out an e-mail summary with all outstanding Planner tasks
- Post messages in Microsoft Teams when a new task is created in Planner
- Receive a push message when a task is assigned to you
You can find the Power Automate templates here:
- Log in to your Office 365 account.
- Open the Power Automate app.
- Click Templates to the left.
- Type ‘Planner’ in the search bar at the top.
4. Planner tasks in Outlook
You don’t need to return to your Planner window every time you want to see which tasks are still on your To Do list. Instead, you can just add your Planner calendar to your Outlook calendar. How do you do this?
- Look for the plan you want to import.
- Click the triple-dot icon in the top right corner.
- Select ‘Add Plan to Outlook Calendar’.
- Go to your Outlook calendar and add the new calendar via ‘Add Calendar’.
You’re done!
