Good news, everybody!

No, I’m not perfecting my impression of Futurama’s Professor Farnsworth. I’m talking about the launch of the eagerly-awaited new planner in Microsoft 365.

In today’s article, I’ll be taking a closer look at the new planner and sharing some of its powerful features, as well as investigating its pricing. I’ve also filmed a full demo that you can watch on my YouTube channel or in the player below.

And so without further ado, let’s get started.

An Introduction to the Microsoft 365 Planner 

Long before we had Microsoft To Do to handle our personal tasks, we also had Microsoft Planner to collaborate with people on our business projects. If Planner was too basic, we could also buy Microsoft Project, which was better for managing more complicated projects.

Now, Microsoft has combined  Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner and certain aspects of Microsoft Project into a new app that’s just called Planner. At the moment, Planner is only available within Microsoft Teams, but there are more updates coming throughout 2024 and so we can expect that to change in time.

It’s also important to note that if you love using Microsoft To Do or Microsoft Planner, those individual apps haven’t gone away and they’re still available for you to use. The new app just gives you the ability to take your planning and project management to the next level.

A Note On Pricing 

Later on in this article, I’ll share a hands-on look at the new Microsoft 365 Planner tool, but before we do that, let’s take a quick look at pricing.

Before the launch of the new planner, Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner were included free of charge in Microsoft 365, while if you wanted to buy Microsoft Project for the web, that cost £580 per license per month.

But that’s old news. The new version of Planner is still free and bundled in with your Microsoft 365 business package, but it also has some premium features that are provided by Microsoft Project. If you want to use those features, you’re going to have to buy a license called Planner Plan One, which costs £820 per license per month.

I’m not the greatest mathematician in the world, but even I can see that £820 is a lot more than £580. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not worth paying for, but it’s certainly worth bearing in mind.

Microsoft 365 Planner Demo 

Now that we know the basics, let’s take a closer look at how the new planner works. Throughout this demo, I’ll be using my test account under the fictitious name of Fred Finance.

Step #1: Loading Microsoft 365 Planner 

To get started, sign into Microsoft Teams and click on the three little dots on the left-hand navigation pane to “View more apps”. You’ll see that Planner is the first application on the list.

If you still can’t see it, don’t worry because you can simply type “Planner” into the “Search for apps” bar. Once you can see it, simply click on the planner to launch it.

We don’t want to do this every time we need to access Planner, so right click on the icon and pin it so that it’s always shown on the menu.

Step #2: Familiarise Yourself with Planner

With that done, let’s take a look at the new planner.

My Day

You’ll see that you have a few different options to choose from, starting with “My Day”. This functionality comes from Microsoft To Do and shows you all the tasks that you have to complete on that day.

There are a few different ways to add tasks to My Day. The first is to click the three dots at the side of any task and then to add it to your day. The second is that if a task is due today, it will automatically be added.

My Tasks

Let’s go over to the next tab, which is “My Tasks”. You’ll notice that there are four tabs along the top:

• All: Lists all the tasks that you have to complete, pulling them in from a variety of different places. You can see where these tasks are being brought in from by looking at the source field. In this example, some of them are private tasks, some of them are flagged emails and some of them are associated with plans.
• Private Tasks: Lists all the tasks that you’ve created for yourself. Because these tasks are private, no one else will be able to see them.
• Assigned to me: Lists tasks that have been assigned to you from a project plan, which we’ll talk about some more later on. Planner will also show you which plans the tasks are associated with.
• Flagged Emails: Lists tasks that you’ve flagged within your email inbox. You can flag tasks in your inbox by opening up the email in question and clicking the flag icon in the navigation bar along the top.