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In this article:
How do I turn off Planner for my organization?
When Microsoft Planner is included in your subscription, it's automatically turned on for everyone in your organization. If you want to control which people in your organization have licenses for Planner, for example, if your organization isn't ready to begin using Planner, you can remove or assign Planner licenses by using Office 365 PowerShell.
Microsoft Planner allows you to have multiple plans, but they all have a similar blank logo with the plan initials. This makes it hard to distinguish plans at a glance. Here’s how to change the logo to something more unique. You might think that changing the logo of a plan would be simple and straightforward, but you would be wrong. Planner is part of Microsoft 365 so it’s just as secure as the other apps. Microsoft 365 also connects Planner with Microsoft To Do, SharePoint, Power Automate, and more for efficient task management.
To control which users have Planner licenses, follow the instructions in How to use Office 365 PowerShell to manage Microsoft Planner licenses. When running the scripts in Office 365 PowerShell, the DisabledPlans value for Microsoft Planner is PROJECTWORKMANAGEMENT.
Note
Removing a user's Planner license only prevents them from navigating to Planner using the Planner tile. Users in your organization without licenses to Planner can still create and modify plans at the direct Planner URL: tasks.office.com. You can remove users' ability to create plans at tasks.office.com (see How do I manage who can create a plan?), but you can't remove their ability to see and modify existing plans at tasks.office.com at this time.
How do I manage who can create a plan?
Every time a person in your organization creates a plan in Planner, the plan's list of members automatically form a Microsoft 365 group. So to control who creates a plan, you need to control who can create Microsoft 365 Groups.
Admins can control who can create a Group by using Azure Active Directory (AD) PowerShell. Follow the instructions in Control who can create Microsoft 365 Groups to:
- Disable Group creation for all users in your organization.
- Allow specific users to create groups (for example, all Planner users) while group creation is disabled.
Important
- Disabling group creation for your organization will affect users of other Microsoft services that need group creation, such as Exchange Online. Make sure to account for all people in your organization that need the ability to create groups when you configure this setting.
- Controlling who can create Microsoft 365 Groups only prevents users from creating new plans. They will still be able to see and modify existing plans at tasks.office.com.
Ms Planner In Teams
How do I change the domain that Planner email notifications come from?
If you are interested in having your notification emails come from a custom email domain, follow the steps described in Multi-domain support for Microsoft 365 Groups - Admin help.
Can people outside of my organization get invited to participate in a plan?
Yes. Guest access allows you to invite people who aren't part of your Microsoft 365 organization to participate in a plan. Guest users will have limited functionality, but can perform the following tasks:
- Create and delete tasks and buckets
- Edit task fields
- Attach a file or link to a task, if given additional permission
- Edit the plan name
For more information, see Guest access in Microsoft Planner.
Can people in my organization use Planner if they don't have an Exchange Online mailbox?
- If you are using Microsoft Planner in a hybrid environment in which your users may have Exchange Online or on-premises mailboxes, note that:
- Planner has full functionality when your user has a product license that includes Exchange OnlinePlanner users without Exchange Online may have the following issues:
- Users may have issues with viewing or adding comments to a task.
- Users may have issues viewing their favorite plans in Planner.
For more information, see KB article 3169632.
How do I make sure all my users can get emails for Planner?
In Planner, users can choose to receive emails when tasks are assigned to them or when tasks are due soon or late (see Choose whether to have email sent directly to you). However, email will only be sent to users who have a product license that includes Exchange Online. Users at organizations using on-premises Exchange Server or hybrid configurations may not receive all Planner emails.
How do I turn off Outlook calendar sync in Planner for my organization?
Outlook calendar sync in Microsoft Planner allows users to view their Planner schedule in Outlook. This feature is turned on automatically in Planner. If you want to turn this off for your organization, follow the steps in Turn off Outlook calendar sync in Planner for your organization.
How do I install or activate Planner for my organization?
Planner comes with these subscriptions:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Office 365 E1
- Office 365 E3
- Office 365 E5
- Microsoft 365 A1
Ms Planner Tutorial
For more on these subscriptions, see business plans, enterprise plans, or education plans. If your current subscription doesn't include Planner, the only way to get Planner is to switch to a subscription that does.
Can I see who is already using Planner, or see a list of all the Planner sites?
You can see a list of all groups in the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the Groups section, and find out more detailed information about these groups using Microsoft 365 Reports in the admin center - Microsoft 365 Groups. Every group comes with a plan, but a list of plans and active usage of plans are not included in these reports right now.
How can I apply CA policies to the Planner iOS and Android apps?
To apply CA policies to the Planner iOS and Android apps, please make sure that CA policies are enabled for Exchange or SharePoint within Microsoft Intune in the Azure portal. Enabling CA policy for Planner alone (without policies enabled for Exchange or SharePoint) does not apply the policies for the Planner iOS and Android apps.
-->A lot of actionable information about changes to Microsoft 365 services arrives in the Microsoft 365 message center. It can be hard to keep track of which changes require tasks to be done, when, and by whom, and to track each task to completion. You also might want to make a note of something and tag it to check on later. You can do these things and more when you sync your messages from the Microsoft 365 admin center to Microsoft Planner. This article describes how.
- How you can use Planner to track your message center tasks
How you can use Planner to track your message center tasks
Message center posts will sync to one plan in Planner, and into one bucket of that plan. You can customize this plan however you like; before you turn on Planner syncing, you might want to figure out how you'll be using Planner so you will know which messages you want to sync, and how. If you’re unfamiliar with Planner, watch Organize your team’s tasks in Planner, see the Planner Quick Start, or browse Planner help.
Based on what we've heard from customers, here are some suggestions about how to organize your plan:
- Sort by service
- Sort by workflow
Organize your plan by service
If you often assign and track message center tasks by the service or app they’re related to, you might want to organize your plan by service. In this design, you’d create a bucket called “Message Center Posts” for messages to sync into and become tasks. You’ll also create a bucket for each service. For example, the buckets could be named 'Exchange Online', 'SharePoint and OneDrive', 'Teams', and 'General'. You and other members of the plan can move tasks from Message Center Posts to the relevant column, and then assign them, give them due dates, add checklists, add attachments, and otherwise track their progress.
Organize your plan by workflow
If you often track message center tasks by what needs to be done in a sequence, you might want to organize your plan by workflow. In this design, you’d create a bucket called “Untriaged” for messages to sync into and become tasks. You’d also create a bucket for each step in the workflow, such as 'Reviewed', 'Rolling Out', 'In Production', and 'Communication'. You and other members of the plan can meet periodically to triage and assign tasks, and to set task status.
Check your status using Charts
Ms Planner Templates
As you build your plan, you can always see a visual report of status using Charts view in Planner. It shows assignments, priority, and progress, letting you know at a glance how you’re doing.
Turn on Planner syncing
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Go to the admin center.
Go to Show all > Health > Message center. Then, right above your messages list, select Planner syncing.
In the Planner syncing pane, select Set up syncing.
Under Select your plan, select either:
Search for a plan, then enter a name or select a plan from the list.
Or create a new plan in Planner, a link that opens Planner. There you can create a new plan, and then return to the message center and search for that plan.
Note
You can only sync your message center with one Planner plan.
Under Select a bucket, either create a new bucket or select an existing one, and then select Next.
Buckets are column-like categories in Planner. After you’ve turned on Planner syncing, each message becomes a task in the bucket you select here.
Note
- You can only select one bucket to sync to, but you can turn Planner syncing off and on again to change which bucket you’re syncing to.
- You can easily change the bucket name at any time in Planner.
Under Choose which messages to sync:
- Select either All updates or Only major updates. For each, you can still exclude updates from specific categories, products, and services using check boxes on this page.
- Decide which categories, products, and services you want to sync by selecting or clearing check boxes in the Include messages in these categories and Include messages about these products or services lists.
- Select Next.
Under Choose which current messages to import, you can decide whether you want to import messages from your current message center. You can select Don't import current messages or or an option to import from the past 7, 14, 21, or 28 days.
Important
After you start syncing to Planner, you can’t import messages again unless you turn off Planner syncing, then turn it on again, and go through setup another time.
On the Review and finish page, make sure the information is correct, and then select Finish.
On the Planner syncing is all set up page:
If you want to sync to Planner on a schedule, do the following:
Under Set up automatic syncing, choose the sync start date and time, and how often you want to sync (for example, every day or every 2 weeks).
Select Create flow with Power Automate.
Under Create a flow, select Continue, choose the plus sign (+) to sign in if necessary, and then select Create flow.
If you want to sync manually, there's no setup needed. Whenever you want to sync the latest posts, go to the message center and, at the top of the page, select Sync now.
To get started organizing, assigning, and taking notes, select the View your plan in Planner link.
Ms Planner Flow
If you want to turn off Planner syncing, go to the message center and select Planner syncing, and then Stop syncing.