Microsoft Planner Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

Pros
For some time before finding Planner I had wished for a tool that allowed me to remotely monitor how my team members were progressing against their to do lists without having to nag and ask them directly. Not only does Planner allow you to do this but it can create goals and objectives for people and allow managers to monitor their productivity. Asides from this you can also create project mapping tools and upload all the relevant files for a project, assigning smaller tasks to different team members.

Cons
It took some time to convince my team of its benefits. It's probably more useful for managers than team members. It can also make an additional layer of activity for team members to regularly check which some may find overbearing and not helpful.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
Microsoft Planner is a good tool for planning among teams, keeping track of ongoing projects that are multilayered. It's easy to use and is integrated with other Microsoft apps.

Cons
One big feature I think is lacking for Microsoft Planner is the notifications. I had a hard time tagging coworkers and getting email notifications.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10

Pros
A very easy way to plan and monitor a job, I have used it a lot for small tasks, combined with MS Teams multiplies the power of the tool.

Cons
There is a lack of way of dividing activities into steps and setting deadlines.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
MS Planner is a bare bones planner tool. It does the basics of creating tasks and allocating them with, or without schedules. It triggers reminder emails and has basic dashboard views for users to see where their efforts need to be directed.

Cons
When using this product with an O365 licence it requires the plan to be associated with a Team (group). I don't understand why it simply can't be associated to my account. Linking it to a group enables the group members to see and edit what is in the plan. There's no security that will allow me to enable plan access to specific team members - so it can't serve a subgroup of the Team. You also cannot have a plan for Private Teams Channels - who are, again, a subgroup of the Team. So you can't build the plan privately or share it privately. This is a major shortcoming.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 5/10

Pros
I like that the system is accessible on any device. The design is straightforward to use and is moderately feature rich.

Cons
There are some core missing features. You can't see all tasks by person assigned, and you can't see all tasks assigned to a team across multiple plans. The team aspect of Planner is minimal and needs to grow. Management features need to be added.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10