New project managers can find it confusing to make sense of the multiple products Microsoft offers for project planning. This post is a brief recap to help make some sense of Microsoft’s project planning tools.
At the time of this writing, Microsoft is upgrading its project planning products and adding a new tool called Planner, which will roll out throughout 2024. The new Planner tool is different from the existing Planner. The information in this post will likely be outdated by the end of 2024, and the post will be removed.
There are a variety of project planning and tracking tools on the market that have evolved with the Cloud and Agile. Tools such as Smartsheet, Jira, and Trello are some of the early project planning tools that accommodated Agile and were cloud-based for anytime, anywhere team access. Today, there are dozens of cloud-based tools to choose from. The latest initiative for enhancing project planning tools is to incorporate AI into the project planning process to reduce the work effort to build, track, and report on a project’s progress.
Microsoft offers seven project and task-level planning tools. If your company, or client, uses the Microsoft technology stack, selecting and using the mix of project planning tools can be confusing.
As mentioned, Microsoft started to roll out a new Planner tool in November 2024, which will consolidate functionality of other project planning products and integrate with Copilot AI. The goal of the new Planner product is to leverage AI to evolve the “collaborative work management (CWM) environment, enterprise work management (EWM) environment, and front-line tasks.” The new Planner product will roll out throughout 2024, and project managers should watch closely to determine the value of adoption. See References below to learn more about the new Planner product and how functionality from other products will migrate or be redesigned in the new Planner product.
As for the current project management tools, the bullet list below describes Microsoft’s current offerings and how you might use them.
• Project for the web – Cloud-based app used to create and collaborate on projects for project managers and non-project managers. Three view options are supported: data grid, Kanban board, and Gantt. Suggested use is for small projects and teams.
• Project desktop application – Used to create complex schedules, show dependencies, estimate costs, and perform resource-leveling. It can be used with Agile and is highly customizable. This single-user tool is excellent for forecasting and planning a new project and for forecasting impacts from scope changes on project timelines and costs.
• Project Online – Web app for small, medium, and large businesses. Project managers and teams use it to create schedules, assign tasks, and have project staff manage their own tasks. It can also be used for portfolio management allowing the PMO see across projects.
• Planner (current version) – Lightweight, mobile, and web app available with many Office 365 subscriptions. The current Planner creates plans, assigns tasks, allows team chats about functions, and charts your team’s progress. It is a limited planning tool. Planner is available from Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
• To Do app – Create, manage, and report on daily personal tasks.
• Tasks app in Microsoft Teams – “Brings together your individual tasks from To Do and Outlook with your team tasks from Planner so you can more efficiently cross them off your lists. Use the unique List view to change many tasks and easily find and edit them. Use the Tasks app to work on To Do and Planner tasks alongside the Teams channels, chats, and apps you’re used to.”
• Azure Boards – Azure Boards evolved from TFS and historically was a development team task management tool. The new cloud version has been enhanced to support Agile and provides customizable capabilities. Boards is part of the Azure DevOps suite and integrates with Azure Test Plan. When Copilot was asked about the relationship between the new Microsoft Planner and Azure Boards (since there will be functional overlap) Copilot responded:
“The relationship between the new Microsoft Planner and Azure Boards is primarily about their integration and how they cater to different aspects of project and task management within the Microsoft ecosystem.
Microsoft Planner is a task management tool part of the Microsoft 365 suite. It’s designed for teams to create plans, assign tasks, chat about functions, and see charts of their team’s progress. It’s integrated with other Microsoft 365 apps like Microsoft Teams and To Do.
On the other hand, Azure Boards is a service under Azure DevOps, which provides a suite of Agile tools to support planning and tracking work, code defects, and issues using Kanban and Scrum methods. It’s more robust and suitable for software development projects that require detailed tracking of backlogs, sprints, and integrations with source control and build/release processes.
The new Microsoft Planner has been updated to bring together the simplicity of Microsoft To-Do, the collaboration features of Microsoft Planner, and the power of Microsoft Project for the web into a unified experience. This starts rolling out in Microsoft Teams, allowing users to scale from simple work management for individuals to collaborative work management with a team and up to enterprise-scale project management.
While both tools are used for project management, they serve different needs. They are part of the broader Microsoft ecosystem that allows for varying levels of complexity and integration depending on the project requirements. Users can choose between them based on the scale and nature of their projects.”
Azure Boards and the new Planner (when it fully rolls out) provide the project manager with two sophisticated task-level planning tools, which require some interesting decision-making on what to use and when. The Planner can support developer-level task management, and you can easily include non-developers. In contrast, Azure Boards is a more complex tool and something you may not want end-users to use, but it integrates with Azure Test Plans. Both tools have user-seat based pricing and can be expensive for large teams that include stakeholders.
If I am working with a small client, my personal preference, barring specific requests from a client, is to use my desktop Microsoft Project for planning, forecasting, and tracking a project and then use a low-cost ALM tool like Inflectra’s SpiraTeam to manage and track requirements, development tasks, defects, and execute test cases. Many ALM cloud tools allow the development team and stakeholders to be on the same platform at a lower cost than Microsoft tools and require less effort to set up and manage.
References
Azure DevOps. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/devops/
Inflectra. https://www.inflectra.com/
Microsoft 365 roadmap (for new Planner). https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/the-new-microsoft-planner-a-unified-experience-bringing-together/ba-p/3977998
When to use Microsoft Project, Planner, To Do, or the Tasks app in Teams – Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/when-to-use-microsoft-project-planner-to-do-or-the-tasks-app-in-teams-8f950d32-d5f4-40db-a8b7-4d1b82b55e17
Scott Van Vliet (2023, Nov 15) The new Microsoft Planner: A unified experience bringing together to-dos, tasks, plans and projects – Microsoft Community Hub Microsoft. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/the-new-microsoft-planner-a-unified-experience-bringing-together/ba-p/3977998
The new Microsoft Planner begins roll out to General Availability – Microsoft Community Hub https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/the-new-microsoft-planner-begins-roll-out-to-general/ba-p/4101056 (Great FAQs on this tech note.)
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