If your business is looking to invest in a collaborative task management tool, you may be pleasantly surprised to find out that Office 365 has its underrated task management application, Planner.
As an Office 365 business user, you can take full advantage of Planner – it’s definitely worth a look. So where do you start with Office 365 Planner?
In this blog, we look at a few facts that will add Planner on your office radar.
1. Planner is inspired by Trello
Inspired by collaborative software application Trello, Planner uses ‘task cards’ displayed in columns and ‘project boards’ defined as a collection of tasks, viewed as a set of columns. Each project gets its own board, and all tasks are visible at a glance.
Just like Trello, coloured labels show if a task is in progress, has become urgent, or is completed. Checklists, timelines and team members’ names can be included with each card. Overall, the intuitive and user-friendly task display improves team productivity.
2. Planner Integrates Easily with Office 365 Tools
Whether you are familiar with the setup from Trello or you are a collaborative task management virgin, the advantage of using Office 365’s Planner tool is the integration with the more popular business tools in Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams.
For example, business users can create and add project plans to already configured SharePoint team sites (viewed as Groups). You can also show plans within the Teams application, and add plans as a tab in Microsoft Teams.
3. Planner is Ideal for Coordinating Work
Planner works well for teams who need to collaborate to complete many subtasks, often in parallel. Each subtask is allocated a card, and once completed moved along the column.
Columns can be identified according to the desired outcome: new, pending and completed tasks. For example, users can employ Planner to address incident management and reporting, from listing issues in progress to evaluation/progress and final resolution.
4. Planner has a Dedicated Mobile App
The Planner tool can be accessed via the Ofice 365 App launcher by selecting the app icon, or via tasks.office.com. There is also a mobile app for iOS and Android that gives remote access to the task management functionality, although somewhat limited in scope. It makes Planner a viable option for remote collaborative work.
Office 365 integrates cloud, mobile, and social technology solutions to make your business more collaborative and productive.
Take advantage of the significant discounts on Office 365 today!
