Using Planner within Microsoft Teams
Peter Baddeley
Director of Microsoft Sales and Client Solutions | Speaker | Trusted Advisor | Microsoft 365 Strategy & Governance
One of the most frequent queries we get asked when demonstrating ProvisionPoint Enterprise is about including a Planner plan in a Microsoft Team. The good news is that ProvisionPoint Enterprise now supports configuring the default Planner plan in a Channel when a new Team is requested. However, this got me thinking about why Planner in Teams is such a common ask from prospective customers.
Managing Projects
The purpose of Teams in an organisation is one of the main drivers for needing Planner. Amongst ProvisionPoint customers, the most frequent use of Teams is for managing projects. It is unsurprising, therefore that these Teams often require the task management capabilities of Planner. While this trend is not industry specific, we have seen that using Teams to manage projects is a particularly common requirement in the construction and IT services sectors.
Natural Fit
Organisations like the idea of Planner inside of a Teams tab, because they naturally fit together. Microsoft Teams itself is a lightweight, easy to use tool for teamwork and collaboration. Planner very much falls into the same category, allowing teams to efficiently manage Tasks without the complexity of tools like Microsoft Project.
Finally, users understand the simple security model. If a user is granted access as a member of a Team, then they also get access to the Planner plan. What’s more, authorised Team Owners can manage who has access to the Team and associated Planner plan.
Using Planner inside Teams benefits everyone in an organisation. Users have easy to use tools, in a relevant context, which they can manage themselves. IT are reassured, as the data is managed in Microsoft 365 instead of shadow IT services.