Image: iStockphoto/Tanya St

Microsoft Planner offers you lot a visual mode to track and manage projects and other work among business teams. Available on the web and as a mobile app, Planner serves as a hub where all team members can create business organization plans and organize tasks and so that other members can view and access them. How does Microsoft Planner piece of work, and how can you and your fellow squad members use information technology to manage your projects and tasks? Let's cheque it out.

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Microsoft Planner requires a Business, Business Premium, or Educational subscription to Office 365. Users of the Home programme or other consumer versions of Office 365 volition non exist able to access information technology. If you lot practise have a qualifying Office 365 business relationship with your organisation, sign into the Microsoft Planner site with your Office 365 username and password. At your Microsoft Planner website, your first step is to devise a program. Click on the button to Create A Plan (Figure A).

Figure A

At the New Plan window, type a name for your business plan. Choose one of the two admission options: ane) Public – Anyone In My Organization Can See Plan Contents; or 2) Private – Only Members I Add together Can Come across Plan Projects. Click the Options pointer and add a group description if you wish. Click the button to Create Programme (Effigy B).

Effigy B

Your next activeness depends on which option you chose–Public or Private. If you lot chose public access, and then you lot can start assigning tasks. If y'all chose private access, then you lot may want to take this fourth dimension to invite other people to the project plan. For the latter, click on the ellipsis icon and select Members. That activeness opens Outlook with your project group listed. Click on the link to Invite Others.

Y'all can invite people internal or external to your organization. People outside your organization are invited as guests who will receive electronic mail notices and tin access content in the grouping project. Click on the Copy Link push to copy a shareable link, or click on the Email push button to ship an invitation email to the people you'd similar to join the group (Figure C).

Figure C

Alternatively, click on the link to Manage Group Members in Outlook. Then click on the link to Add Members. Cull the members you lot wish to add and click the Add button (Figure D). And so close the window.

Figure D

Close Outlook and return to Microsoft Planner. Click the button to Add together Task. Type the task name, enter a due appointment, and and so assign the task to a grouping member. Click the button to Add Task (Figure E). Continue to add and assign tasks this way to members of the group.

Figure E

Adjacent, you can create buckets to organize the different tasks past type of work, department, or other criteria. To do this, click on the link to Add together New Bucket. Blazon a name for the bucket. You can so add tasks directly to that saucepan (Figure F).

Figure F

As y'all and other group members accomplish tasks, simply click on their circles to indicate that they've been completed. You can and then check on completed and ongoing tasks a couple of different means. Click on the Charts header to view the progress of all tasks (Figure G).

Effigy G

Click on the Schedule header to see a calendar view of assigned tasks and flip through the months to see the status of all tasks (Figure H).

Effigy H

Click the ellipsis icon for a specific task. From the menu, you can assign a color label to it, assign it to a different person, re-create the task, copy a link to the task, move the chore to a different list, or delete the job (Figure I).

Figure I

Click on the task itself. You can now add more details, including a start date, progress on the task, the priority, notes, and an attachment (Figure J). Close the task window when washed.

Figure J

Side by side, click on the ellipsis icon for a specific program. Here, you can add it as a favorite, export it to Excel, add it to your Outlook calendar, and run other commands (Figure K).

Effigy Thousand

To create a new plan, click on the New Programme entry in the left sidebar. To view all your plans, click on the Planner Hub entry in the sidebar. Click on the My Tasks entry to see tasks assigned to you.

Finally, you lot tin can utilise the Microsoft Planner mobile app to rail and work with your plans and tasks. To get the app, click on the Get The App Button in the Planner Hub and enter your mobile phone number. Alternatively, grab the app direct from Apple'due south App Store for an iPhone or iPad, and from Google Play for an Android device.