Microsoft Launches Trello-Like 'Planner' App for Some Office 365 Subscribers

[MacRumors]

Microsoft has announced it is rolling out a new project management and collaboration app called Planner to certain Office 365 subscribers for free from today.

Similar to Trello in concept, Planner enables users to organize projects into "buckets", or collections of tasks that can then be dragged and dropped between buckets in the project interface.

Planner has a marked emphasis on team collaboration: tasks can be assigned to individual team members and users can get a visual overview of task responsibilities, progress, and upcoming deadlines.

The company has been trialling the app through a select few customers since September, but the planned rollout "over the next several weeks" marks the app's official entrance into the standard Office suite of apps. It is available for eligible users with certain Office 365 Enterprise, Business Essentials, Premium, and Education subscriptions.

Existing Office users needn't do anything to access the app, as the tile should appear in the Office 365 launcher as soon as it becomes available.

In recent months Apple has been including a subscription option for Microsoft Office 365 in all iPad ordering processes on its website, a move that initially raised a few eyebrows, since Apple usually positions its iWork suite as a better alternative to Microsoft's Office apps.

Update: This article has been updated to note only certain subscription plans not including the Home subscription will receive access to the Planner app.

Article Link: Microsoft Launches Trello-Like 'Planner' App for Some Office 365 Subscribers

 

[domness]

Why are we getting told about this? lol

 

[Shirasaki]

Where is it?
I subscribe office 365 enterprise E3.
No such tile in my app launcher.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Where is it?
I subscribe office 365 enterprise E3.
No such tile in my app launcher.

The home versions of O365 get virtually all products before the Enterprise.

Just checked and it's available in neither yet. The article does say it will appear at some point but doesn't mean it's already there.

 

[billybobthornton]

Rumor has it Bill Gates bought Macrumors.

 

[spazzcat]

The home versions of O365 get virtually all products before the Enterprise.

Just checked and it's available in neither yet. The article does say it will appear at some point but doesn't mean it's already there.

Your admins may need to turn it on? I'll check when I get to work in the admin area.

Edit: Checked, no settings yet, guessing it will come with the June update?

 

[bpcookson]

This actually has me itching to sign up for 365. I had tried Trello and really liked the concept but a lack of integration and no native windows app doesn't do well in my workflow. I also gave OneNote a halfhearted shot but the lack of structure makes it feel like too much work.

If this Planner app integrates well with flagged emails and tasks in Outlook I might just bite. Wish I could run a demo...

 

[ZZ Bottom]

Going to take quite a bit to break me away from Asana. I will give it a try though.

 

[WordsmithMR]

Why are we getting told about this? lol

Because Office runs on Macs...

And sweet. I really like Trello, but if this includes a lot of the premium features that I don't have access to on Trello (because I'm a cheap bastard) then this is awesome.

 

[bbaumgardner22]

The home versions of O365 get virtually all products before the Enterprise.

Just checked and it's available in neither yet. The article does say it will appear at some point but doesn't mean it's already there.

It may take up to 24 hours to update your "waffle". In the meantime, try to go to tasks.office.com and log in.

If you still can't get in, go to this link (https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...ecd-9b35-17b77998b420?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US) and get the preview going today.

 

[RightMACatU]

Awesome idea to force O365 subscribers to renew each year

 

[Shing]

The image associated with this article is misleading. Planner is not available for Office 365 Home. According to the Microsoft website, "Microsoft Planner is included with Office 365 Enterprise (E1, E3, E4, and E5), Office 365 Education (E1, E3, E4, and E5), Office 365 Business Essentials, and Office 365 Business Premium."

 

[tsaka]

Registartion page... why is that all i take away from this?

 

[BigMcGuire]

It may take up to 24 hours to update your "waffle". In the meantime, try to go to tasks.office.com and log in.

If you still can't get in, go to this link (https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...ecd-9b35-17b77998b420?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US) and get the preview going today.

Looks like they shut that down quickly, lol "This article is in the process of being retired."

 

[Kaibelf]

Awesome idea to force O365 subscribers to renew each year

"Force." I got my subscription for 80 bucks. I see value in spending less than 7 bucks a month for tools like this. Don't need them, don't subscribe. Do you also want to complain about Apple Music?

 

[johannnn]

Where is the Mac app? Where is the iOS app? Looks like a cool app but I don't understand why it's on Macrumors.

 

[RedmondRebel]

OK if you want a Trello-clone, but what if you want to use Google Drive or Box and not just O365? And what if you have to scale up -- a real-life project will easily need 50-100 cards and maybe 10 people working, and neither Trello nor Planner will scale to that level easily. With Trello that's by design: Joel Spolsky doesn't believe boards should be big in the first place (he wrote a long blog about that some years ago), and with Planner you can't even assign a single card to more than one person.

My personal preference is for Kerika which lets me work with Scrum, Kanban and Whiteboards. And, I don't need O365 -- I signed up using my Google ID so I get all the cloud storage and apps for free.

 

[knguyench]

Anybody in mac os x have use it? Please let me some comment.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Your admins may need to turn it on? I'll check when I get to work in the admin area.

Edit: Checked, no settings yet, guessing it will come with the June update?

I'm not a user, I'm a cloud partner.

 

[Ap0ks]

Where is it?
I subscribe office 365 enterprise E3.
No such tile in my app launcher.

It takes time to show up as Microsoft are rolling it out to all business accounts over the next couple of months.

If you're in a hurry to use it (and are on one of the relevant plans), as previously suggested, visit tasks.office.com and leave the page open for a bit - it'll eventually refresh with the planner setup on your account. You can then create new plans and start adding tasks.

I suspect it'll be very useful for companies that are already using Office365 for email and storage, the integration just makes it a lot easier than dealing with separate applications, accounts and logins.

 

[Shirasaki]

It takes time to show up as Microsoft are rolling it out to all business accounts over the next couple of months.

If you're in a hurry to use it (and are on one of the relevant plans), as previously suggested, visit tasks.office.com and leave the page open for a bit - it'll eventually refresh with the planner setup on your account. You can then create new plans and start adding tasks.

I suspect it'll be very useful for companies that are already using Office365 for email and storage, the integration just makes it a lot easier than dealing with separate applications, accounts and logins.

Well. Compare with that super expensive Project Professional, I would like to use some simple apps to create project, thus reducing running cost.
OK. If they need some time to roll out, I would wait. Not a big deal.