Microsoft 365 How-To

Planner organizes tasks on a board with columns called buckets. Think of it like sticky notes on a whiteboard, organized by category.

• Buckets are columns you define -- e.g., "To Do," "In Progress," "Done," or by category like "Maintenance," "Inspections," "Follow-ups."
• Task cards sit inside buckets. Each card shows the task name, who it's assigned to, due date, and priority.
• You can drag and drop cards between buckets to reorganize.

Planner offers several views beyond the default board. Look for the view switcher at the top of your plan:

• Board -- the default column/bucket view. Best for dragging tasks around and getting an overview.
• Charts -- pie charts and graphs showing task status, assignments, and priority breakdown. Great for managers to see progress at a glance.
• Schedule -- a calendar view showing tasks by due date. Helpful for seeing what's coming up this week or month.
• Group by -- switch between grouping tasks by bucket, assignee, progress, due date, priority, or label. Try "Group by Assignee" to see each driver's workload.

Tasks have three progress states. Update them as you work so managers can track what's happening:

Comments are the best way to communicate about a specific task. Everyone assigned to the task (and the plan owner) can see comments.

Use comments instead of sending separate Teams messages about a task -- it keeps the conversation attached to the work item.

You can drag and drop task cards between buckets to reorganize your board. Use the Charts view to see progress at a glance, and Filter to narrow down tasks by assignee, due date, priority, or label.

Planner integrates directly into Teams. Managers can add a Planner tab to any Teams channel so the whole team can see task boards without switching apps. See the Teams section for how to set this up.