Name: Microsoft Planner
Rating: 4.65672 (11344 reviews)

User Reviews for Microsoft Planner

4.66 out of 5

11.3K Ratings

6 years ago, Hizzle8

Hands down - Best planner app I have ever used

Seriously, this app is everything I could need in my life right now. I'm pretty old fashioned and like to write most of my events and tasks down in a physical planner, but I have learned I also need that info on the go as I have become a busy adult. I’ve searched for different apps to assist with my organization, but none have done it quite so well as this one. Working on my PhD coursework, research, advisor tasks, plus new-mom duties to take care of my 6 month old, and building a business... this app helps me keep my head together. I need this app to stay around forever, so please don’t disappear or phase out!! When I tell others (everyone, basically) about why I love this app, my description boils down to “lists, on lists, on lists” which is perfect for an organizer like myself!! I never thought I would be over the moon anything by Microsoft but this app pleasantly surprised me. Keep doing your thing, y’all!!

4 months ago, LonDon.of.the.Yukon

Good looking but vulnerable and insecure

I’ve been using Planner for several years to manage assignments within my engineering department. It’s a great communication tool with good features. I like the fact that it provides a comment log and checklist so that projects can be handed off to other engineers or teams. I also like the mobility when using the app. I use it at weekly one-on-one reviews to discuss progress and prioritize. However, any member of the group can change or even delete a task. There is no security so that the owner of the task has control. Furthermore, once a task or bucket is deleted, that’s it! Sayonara baby. It’s gone forever. No undo. No warning the owner or even the deleter that it will be lost permanently. My IT department backs up OneDrive files, but no way to backup Planner. I lost two years’ worth of project info this way. It’s like losing your house to a fire after the Insurance company handed out torches to your guests and then after the fire they tell you “oh that’s too bad. We’re sorry that happened. “

6 years ago, Donald Tynes II

A great software application for managing my personal tasks.

I have used this software for about six months now. Although the application has collaboration functionality, for my single-member LLC, all that I need is to keep track of a set of tasks, describe them, estimate the time to complete them, create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), assign a date and time (with the help of Calendar) to complete each time, which shows on my schedule as 'Busy' - which is exactly what I want, then finally record the actual time the task took. There are a few features that I would like it to have, like automatic integration with my Calendar product on iOS. But, except for a few features that I would love it to have, the software application is a great solution for my task needs.

4 years ago, Boston Cleantech

This would be cooler if it integrated with outlook

Overall this is a pretty good app and a pretty good task planning tool. As a primarily business user, outlook has been home base for long time and it is intuitive. I get that different users like different UIs. But for me I wish that Planner and Teams (and other Office 365 apps) were seamlessly integrated with Outlook. Calendar is integrated with the Outlook iPhone app but why not Planner and Teams? All of these systems seem like they want to connect with each other seamlessly but then they don’t and you end up stuck in silos. The breakthrough for the Office 365 suite will be when MS makes the dynamic work platform of Office available in a unified user interface. For me that ideal interface would be Outlook with all others hanging therefrom. Outlook email groups, Teams channels, Planner threads all tend to get siloed from each other (there is a wonky method for connecting some of these but it is not easy and doesn’t work fully). Yet these are essentially the same workflow data, just with different UI interaction points.

7 years ago, rpee

Can't believe I'm rating a Microsoft app 5 stars

I really like this app. It's the right blend of simplicity and power. Feels a lot like how I tried to make Wunderlist work for business years ago but it never really did. This feels cleaner and less friction overall than Trello. Keep up the great work. I don't use Teams though. I'd love to get this hooked up to Slack. One thing I'd change: after clicking into a task from the 'My Tasks' section, the name of the Plan is in the upper left, next to the Bucket Name. Clicking the Plan name should take me to the Plan, not to change the bucket, like makes sense would happen when you click on the bucket name. I can't seem to get back to the Plan unless I go to the Planner Hub. Just a few extra clicks that mightn't be needed...

5 months ago, Bob karp

Decent, would be 5 star if…

…tasks in To Do could be moved to buckets in Planner. Currently, there are round about ways of doing it but you can’t copy a whole checklist from To Do to Planner. If you are like me and use Teams and Outlook for communication, collaboration, and task management, then the Microsoft 365 suite should seamlessly work together. They don’t. I like being able to flag an email as a task for myself, but unless you share your To Do list with others on your team, you can’t assign it to anyone or put it in the shared planner. Also, the one thing I need out of Planner is a dependency Gantt chart, but that is only available if you upgrade to Project (soon to be just Planner - Still no clarification as to getting Gantt with that). Why pay for Microsoft 365 if you have to pay extra for things that Apple gives freely.

1 year ago, Jonboy1911

What I was looking for

Love the fact that Planner integrates with To Do, and that To Do also pulls in tasks from Outlook. What I wish it had was a way to directly promote Outlook emails to Planner to save on some of the typing. The search function of the web app is frustrating to use. Also ways to sort all tasks within Planner would be nice, though To D does an OK job of this. Still, it’s the best tool I’ve found so far for integrating the GTD (Getting Things Done - David Allen) methodology with my work tasks. The phone app is a plus since I can capture ideas/tasks directly without having to email myself, and then convert to Planner.

4 years ago, Gkldert

Great - could be even better

I very much like how good Planner is at keeping tasks assigned to different team members and especially how it interfaces with Outlook’s calendar - this was very critical for me, so I could not only set deadlines for me and my team, but also plan the workload. A couple of things that I wish it did better: (1) It would be great to be able to archive buckets that are no longer relevant (the only option not to see them any more is to delete them, but that deletes all the information included). (2) It would be great to be able to set a general deadline for the bucket and include notes at the bucket level too. (3) The IPad App does not allow to move buckets around (you can only do it in the web-based version). (4) The IPad app does not allow the user to view projects in a “schedule” view.

4 years ago, RykustheWaterNinja

Has a lot of potential.

Began creating a group for the Small Business I work with. I find that being able to communicate as a team as well as view, create and assign task is very helpful for a business. This in turn also provides a sense of organization as well as good workmanship. The only thing that would be great is to have this available as a desktop app and not just available on webpage. It just makes things more convenient and less like to lose you place if the internet or web browser crashes. Other than that, this is a great addition and has plenty of potential. Thank you.

3 years ago, CS Eng

Lost functionality without filters

My supervisors insist on using the buckets as the means to separate different projects. This is fine, if you could use filters to sort out the different items that late, due today, or due yesterday. However, with the iPad app, you cannot use filters, so when you’re viewing what you have to do in the my tasks, you cannot see what project (bucket) that task is associated with, until you click on each individual task. Overall, I find myself pulling my hair out trying to have a simple way of organizing my tasks for several projects. When I point this out to my supervisors, they just tell me to not use my iPad for this tool, but just use the desktop version. Two stars for this app because if poor implementation.

4 months ago, hjdndhduzjdjns

Great tool

I used to use Ms Project in PC but there is no App for phone which limits me. Instead i started using it and i great so far. I will like to see better integration to One Note, like habing the ability to have a section in task to be a page in one note to gain max flexibility when defining tasks. I also would like to see better integration with Power Automate, so that it can create probably in SharePoint for example, or create items, and Sharpoint lists when I create a project or new plan. As well as better connectors to OneNote in Power Automate, so that I can create a page and add a title to it.

5 years ago, Most Unhappy User

A great tool!

Through the years I have used many different pieces of software and tried to develop many different practices, to schedule my life both at work and at home. Planner is simple quick and efficient. I would like to see a little bit more customization allowed, so that it works a little bit more streamlined. There is a large crevasse between Microsoft planner and Microsoft project finding something close to the middle would be optimal for the users of Microsoft. But I was trying to run with the premise do not let perfection get in the way of progress - CLewis

5 years ago, Rasuel

A few enhancements needed but mostly good

The biggest problem is not being able to update multiple items together. I'd like to select all and apply the same value. Also, filter is an OR.. not an AND. Meaning, I can't filter by multiple buckets at the same time. It's only one or the other. Also, when in the desktop I can't export nor import. So it's alot of manual effort to set up. Also no ability to include dependencies Otherwise you can sort by different methods. The chart and visual aspects are useful. Assignment is cool too. I like the flags. Checklist is a nice feature to keep track of subtasks. With the buckets, I was able to build a Kanban board for a scrum project!! This also likes well to other areas of Microsoft like SharePoint

4 years ago, killjoi

“We cannot complete your request because Planner traffic is unusually high.”

I’m a heavy Planner user. I began getting the error in the title of this review months ago whenever I add or edit an existing item. I’ve tried reinstalling, different phones, no clue as to what the issue could be. “Please try again in a few minutes,” the error concludes. I’ve tried using the app at random times throughout. Would give this 4 stars if it worked for me. As is, hard to recommend to others without a resolution.

8 months ago, hvhghgvh

Organized

This app has changed how I work my job. This app has allowed me to better structure the many tasks that I need to do, prioritize them, and create a game plan to tackle them, as well as helps me remember my top priority. It’s very convenient to use this app on the go. While I am out and about, I can simply utilize the app, insert a task, update a task or edit my board and move on about my day. I am even sharing this with my coworkers and getting them onboard as well!

6 years ago, hansonco

Planner is great

Our company has been using planner for core operational PM and task related events. It is flexible, intuitive and clean. Flows work great to tie to other apps within MS world and outside. MS must invest in the enhancement of Planner to take it to the next level: + create more pre-established Flows + simple integration with email/calendar and perhaps Tasks or ToDo (this would increase adoption enormously....too many competitive tools with email support) + company internal branding, simple images for plans...add a little sizzle to make more main stream + drag and drop, drag and drop, etc If MS wants companies to stay within the MS umbrella for certain apps, then make them work together. The MS apps are great, may not have all the F&F of competition, though the MS apps serve a greater purpose: not all companies need robust PP, CRMs, etc. The core MS apps nicely fill so many gaps needed, without the time and $ burn.

4 years ago, iceberg7474

Mixed review

I love this app, and it offers some great functionality (especially with the ability to link to work plans inside Teams). However, it has been almost useless for about 3 weeks now due to an error that won’t go away. When I update a task with a new item, I keep getting an error saying “planner traffic is unusually high right now”, and it then won’t save any of my updates (others in my group aren’t getting the same error). A bit frustrating, and it has rendered the app almost useless for my primary use with my work team... look forward to this bug being fixed.

2 years ago, Goofy Laid Back

Almost perfect…

Great for team project management for those of us who do not need Gantt charts or time tracking. The ONLY thing still missing that would raise it to 5 stars is to implement the *recurring task* Planner feature that now exists in the MS365 web app. At least the new recurring Planner task is created when I complete a recurring task in the iPad Planner app; however, I can *neither see nor edit task recurrence* within the iOS app. While I do not find this feature on the Roadmap, I do hope MS is working on this most valuable feature!!

2 years ago, Undertalemicrochip

I can’t use it because I have a personal account

I LOVE organization for my personal use. My school doesn’t use Microsoft, but it has helped me over time. I do not have a office account with Microsoft yet, but I decided to try Microsoft Planner, and it didn’t let me in because I had a personal account and when I tried to create an work account, it automatically set the account I created to personal. So I don’t know if I can create a work account or a school one, please correct me if I am wrong, but I think that Microsoft planner would be better if accessible to younger students like me. Please let personal accounts into Microsoft planner

8 months ago, Jasoncparham

Microsoft planner

I do not recommend is planner but having issues logging in to Microsoft planner and I cannot get in for personal use at all I Microsoft and they never replied so comparing with Google calendar is much better than Microsoft but I like Microsoft I’m sure everyone uses it but the updated teams is annoying. Apparently I was wondering if you guys can make everything better regardless, Jason Parham.

9 months ago, Nfektd1

Great app!

This is a phenomenal application! Being an IT professional and an entrepreneur allows the teams I work with to efficiently work through project tasks efficiently. The only reason I didn’t give 5⭐️’s is because the application doesn’t support personal Microsoft accounts. My personal email address I’ve had for years and used during the start up phases of my business ventures, however I’m unable to collaborate with team members unless we all have school/business Microsoft accounts.

12 months ago, Yakeb

Used to be available for personal accounts

Why on earth would you take this away from paying customers? This was rolled out for everyone paying Office 365, and it was decent and still a little rough around the edges, but then they just take it away from Personal Office 365? How are we supposed to get our data back? Also, I can think of many reasons why individuals would want to use this, but then you just make it inaccessible to lots of people (people who pay for Office 365 mind you). Very disappointed that MS would get people’s hopes up by letting them use the app in it’s infancy and the turn around and wall it off. Classic bait and switch.

6 years ago, rgwus

Needs more on the mobile app side

Overall the app is more responsive than the desktop app integration with Teams. If there is a search feature I haven’t found it on the mobile app. It makes it challenging to search through 100s of cards. I also wish you could edit your own comment because a few times I hit send too soon or saw mistakes after sending. Only other thing is I wish there was a toggle for the search feature to look through the comments.

4 years ago, xhjrffggfdgjkitffg

Can’t delete the plans that you make on mobile

It’s a nice app but I can’t delete any of the plans that I’ve made on mobile. There’s no option to do so on mobile even after clicking “Plan Settings” you’re only given the option to edit it. There’s also a lack of features in this app. I can’t move the plans above or under where it appears so that they can be in accordance with my schedule. You also can’t choose what colors they display on the planner hub.

5 years ago, Not dependent

Nice but need E365 and be on the same domain

Planner is a well executed Trello-like kanban board. Unfortunately you must have an enterprise Office 365 account to use it and then you can’t collaborate with people outside your company. There is also no way to print a board or list. Sharing within your single company is better executed than in Microsoft To Do. With planner, you select the members that can be added and deleted. To Do uses lame sharing like OneDrive that is link based. Wunderlist list solved the sharing problem many years ago. With Wunderlist you can share to any email but the add/remove process works like the membership in Planner.

7 years ago, averagejohn

The Ultimate To-Do!

I've been using Wunderlist for years now, and it's a nice app but it's not what one would call "business class," Microsoft Planner however is wonderful! It's polished, powerful, simple, a true joy to use. My only gripe is, this isn't available for everyone with a standard Live account. I think I speak for the majority of people when I say I would gladly pay for the privilege to use this app as a standalone product. It's THAT good!

3 years ago, DHSwims

Not great - functionality issues

Could be useful but some of the functionality is lacking: 1) tasks are not automatically placed in due-date order but instead in order of entry, so a task with a Sept 1 deadline might be listed before a task with an Aug 1 deadline, unless you move it manually to the right position. Illogical. 2) Screen freezes at times when entering a new task; the “add” button doesn’t work. This happens when the icon for “buckets” appears with the calendar icon. 3) Can’t move the order of the buckets once they are created.

4 years ago, slade671

Looks Great! Only Problem Is...

I've looked at MC Planner and it looks good, but when I download it, it says I need to use a work / school email. I was really disappointed because I really wanted to use this but it doesn't work. I'm giving it a 5 start so that I don't discourage others, but can you please change it to make it a personal planner using a personal email? Thank you!

6 years ago, JacobFlowers

Sub-Par compared to market leaders

This app needs a lot of work. Falls behind Trello Asana, and Monday. No list view options. Cannot add sub-tasks. Cannot link tasks on other boards. Disappointing considering Microsoft resources. Also, integration with Sharepoint, OneDrive is a complete nightmare. This has a lot of potential, but It is clear that product groups are not working well together. The whole suite is bloated, unintuitive, and buggy. Not recommended, unless you are strapped for cash, and can’t invest in a better PM tool, since planner comes wrapped in a 365 subscription.

4 years ago, sayvilleguy

Iphone app useless

Don’t bother to download. The Planner on desktop within O365 and Teams works but this mobile version utterly useless. Very unstable. Once you’ve looked at Plans and Tasks, next time you open it only shows “recents” but clicking on them just refreshes the page. You can no longer actually open them. You can add to your favorites but then you still can’t see your favorites. Totally broken useless app. Again the desktop version works fine albeit convoluted approaches. But this iPhone app is a mess. Iphone 11Pro with all iodates (incl 13.5) so it’s not a glitch with ios. Just a really bad app.

4 years ago, Meme JAnn

Another Genius Move

Have been researching lots of task-organization software. The more I looked and tried apps, the more I felt like Goldilocks. Being a Microsoft user, I am surprised I missed Planner. It is “Just Right”! Our first project got rave reviews from our team. Very intuitive and genius organization. We hit the ground running within 24 hours of building our first plan.

4 years ago, Scudey

Not smartly integrated with MS Teams

As a stand-alone app, it works for very simplified task-oriented project management. I wish it had more color labels instead of being limited. Regardless, it works good enough. I’m mostly disappointed in the way it is difficult to work with from inside MS Teams. Mainly, it is currently impossible to build a “template” Planner to use in a repetitive process situation for other groups or Teams. That is the one thing keeping me from rating this better. Otherwise, it works good enough.

4 years ago, DanHub43

Works well for its limited scope

This needs to be combined and simplified with tasks, reminders, calander and whatever other apps office 365 has out there. They should all work together in a simplified way and be connected. The form, assigning, sharing, and due dates parts of planner are easy to use. The problem is that it is a separate app, online only, that you have to log into to view. Integration within Outlook, would help simplify outlook, and give you more power in Outlook to control your life.

3 years ago, Bossman5411

Plan better w/Microsoft Planner

My team uses Planner for our weekly goals meetings. We review assignments and assign task with ease. Export features allow us to provide KPI (key performance indicators) w/senior management and end users. If you are not using Planner to plan and want to increase your team’s output, I strongly recommend that you trial the program. You’ll love it!

7 years ago, Arealscreenplay

Rudimentary

It would be nice if Microsoft could get it together. Every time they come out with an app, it doesn’t work as intended. If you click a link to a document embedded in a task it reports error 912. This renders the app useless as it will not open docs in the OneDrive app or in OneDrive online. It works “somewhat as intended” on the IPhone: It wont open in OneDrive, but after 3 clicks on the request to open in browser, it finally will open the document. Really, Are you doing any QA testing before you release. This product should be somewhat mature and not have Mickey Mouse issues at this point. No insult intended to Mickey!

4 years ago, Rjd2rjd2

Microsoft is crushing it

Recent updates have been excellent. Staying in one place (Microsoft) with all of our software just makes total sense now with Teams, Outlook and Planner (not to mention SharePoint and Power BI). This has been really good for our small business. Makes us feel like legit elite software for the big guys is finally accessible to all.

4 years ago, njmatch3

So much potential

This is a great functional alternative for Trello, free to any office 365 user, and more intuitive than Trello in many ways. Stronger integration with Outlook would seal the deal. It’s baffling that I can use an add in to create a Trello card (or attach to an existing card) directly from an outlook email, but can’t create a new planner task/card (or attach an email to an existing planner card/task). It’s also frustrating that my Outlook categories don’t automatically populate in Planner too.

5 years ago, jwagnerm

Fundamental fix that could greatly improve the app

There needs to be an option where you can assign view only option for added members. Relying on others to accurately update may not always be useful to track progress as there is not necessarily and associated double check on task execution. With view only there would need to be updates to the project leader/ debriefs

6 years ago, Love2climb

Surprisingly easy to jump in and begin using

I thought I was going to have to spend a lot of time studying this app out before begin using it. It only took me a few minutes and I started our team on the path of more focused planning! Thanks you guys at Microsoft.

5 years ago, Bnire

Mobile app usability

Really need to be able to search for cards and navigate on mobile easier. On a board with lots of cards it’s way too cumbersome to have to search through everything to find a card. Search and zooming out would be helpful for that. Also other features that would be very helpful and allow me to recommend this app as verses Trello is the ability to assign checklist task items to people and have more than 1 checklist on a card.

5 years ago, Lcsturdi

Task tracking that you’re already paying for!

We have been very pleased with Planner. Its provides task assignment and tracking from an easy to use dashboard. Its not so complex that you need to take a a month off to learn it. It’s bundled in Office365. The solution I needed was hiding right under my nose. When they roll out parent/child events with cascading deadlines, I’ll probably have to take up chess or origami with all the time I’ll have on my hands.

5 years ago, jeff Crocker

Bugs

A plan gets full fairly quickly and slows down very badly. It’s Hard or impossible to migrate task to a different plan. This makes delegating more difficult because it requires retyping. It would be great to be able to move a task to a different plan in the same way we can move a task to a different bucket. Maybe it’s doable already and I just don’t know how. It seems my daughter was able to do this but in my mental memory it took several steps and was not simple. Also I don’t remember if it was a complete task migration with all the notes and lists and attachments and comments etc. We want to be able to share or export an entire a task or a bucket to a person who may not be added as a user to the plan.

5 years ago, Brad Cloutier

Save My Drafts Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to keep track of the things I do ALL DAY. I cant have a several comments, it needs to be in one. Especially with that stupid long warning that comes with every note we make (seriously, we get it, its confidential). If anything goes wrong, if I leave the comment there too long or data gets interrupted.. its gone, all my notes. Save the drafts, Save drafts, Save my freaking drafts!!!!!!

5 months ago, Ace Jedi

Needs to be available to personal accounts

I use this fantastic app extensively at work. It is, in my opinion, the best planning/kanban app out there. However, the fact that we can't use it with our personal accounts is CRAZY. Having Planner available on my personal account would make me pay for 365. But no. 5 stars for the app -2.5 stars (rounded to -3) for not being available to me personal account.

2 years ago, NoNameEinstein

NEEDS BETTER LINK SUPPORT AND INTEGRATION WITH WINDOWS PRODUCTS

Overall this is a great application to keep connected with tasks and topics. I think there needs to be better capabilities to tie together notifications, updates, changes, and links as well as some security restriction options that allow individuals to complete certain portions of a task but not others. EG the details but not the overall.

3 years ago, OSOMANOSO

Good Product

This could be an exceptional product if it did two things, integrate with me project and have the ability to record a numerical metric. Otherwise, I would stick to to-do. Planner also needs to easily integrate with outlook and it needs a desktop app. It’s a good start but not totally on the mark.

5 years ago, The Ninth Hermit

Lacks most of the web apps functionality

The app has improved in reliability since I first wrote this review, but it is still lacking several critical features like search and keyword filters. There is hope it will eventually be useful. ________\\\\\ I use the browser based app exclusively after trying to use what passes for the iOS app. I’ve experienced frequent data loss, with entries and even tasks entered through the iOS app completely disappearing. This version lacks the filters a search features that make the browser based app usable. Don’t bother with tis app, which is just a waste of space. Access Planner through your favorite browser.

6 years ago, T Flippin

Almost incredible

I really enjoy the way this task manager works. It helps me to finish complicated tasks. It needs to all you to set up templates or truly copy tasks or buckets. It also needs to let you hide plans once completed. Otherwise it is great.

7 years ago, Momlissa516

Tagging

I love how you can assign tasks but your comments cannot be tagged to call out a specific person, not can the checklist be assigned to a specific person. We use a group and in some cases not all portions are relevant to each person but holistically we Are aiming to complete the said task/Project. Still learning the tool but liking what is there. Just needs some more product enhancements.

5 years ago, Send to Onenote

Combine To-Do & Planner App

I love using the planner app as well as the To-Do app, but if they worked together that would be much more helpful. The reminder option and time of reminder option is hugely helpful in the To-Do app so I use that app for deadlines and planner for broad planning but it would be much simpler to use just one app with all of the capabilities.

Description

Microsoft Planner requires an eligible Office 365 work or school subscription. This app does not support Office 365 personal accounts (for example: [email protected] or [email protected]). If you are not sure about your company’s subscription or the services you have access to, please contact your IT department. Planner provides a simple, visual way to organize teamwork. Planner makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you’re working on, and get updates on progress. -- Organize work visually -- Each plan has its own board, where you can organize tasks into buckets. You can categorize tasks based on their status or on whom they’re assigned to. To update the status or change assignments, just drag and drop tasks between columns. -- Visibility -- The My Tasks view provides a comprehensive list of all your tasks and their status across all your plans. When working together on a plan, team members always know who is working on what. -- Collaborate -- Built for Office 365, Planner lets you work together on the same tasks, attach captured photos directly to them, and even have conversations around tasks without switching between apps. With Planner, all your team’s discussions and deliverables stay with the plan and don’t get locked away across disparate applications. -- Works across devices -- Planner works across all your devices. And with Planner, everyone is always on the same page. Continue conversations and updates tasks while on-the-go or at your desk. Terms of service: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=846830 Privacy policy: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=521839 To learn more, please visit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=849067 The Microsoft Planner app will request permission to access your photos and your camera: When you try to attach a photo to a Planner task, the app requests permission to access your Photos app in order to select images. If you choose to take a photo to attach to a Planner task, the app will request permission to access your Camera app.