Provide the ability to create Plan templates with existing tasks that can then be used to create a new plan
Rather than having to create every plan from scratch it would be good if the system allowed for the creation of Templates with pre-existing tasks (like in Word/Excel). This would allow a new plan and its tasks to be created from a template saving a lot of time.
Matthew Kirk
shared this idea
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your patience. We have updated our Copy Plan experience – please try it out today!
This improvement will include the ability to choose an existing group or team to copy the plan into (or choose to create a new group). You’ll also be able to customize what gets copied over. Attachments can only be copied over into existing groups.
You can learn more here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/expanding-the-copy-plan-and-filtering-features-based-on-your/ba-p/1483491
1068 comments
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Bernd Krell
commented
If I add a Planner in Sharepoint and access it through Sharepoint Web UI, my checklists are not carried over when I copy a task within the same group. Even it is check marked, it won't get copied. It does work from within Teams or iOS app.
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Henrik Larsen
commented
Create a planner template, that can be used in several other teams is essential and would help all of our managers to create teams with a predefined set of tasks for the employees to use.
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Robert Hudson
commented
Copying a plan is not very useful for Teams.
Unless I'm missing something (definitely possible), I can't put a copied plan into a Teams channel, which is very useful for my organization to check in on the progress of the task.I would like to see the feature available directly through the Teams app so that users can create a plan through Teams by being able to select a template, much like the option to use an existing plan.
The problem with using an existing plan is that it also uses the progress of that plan so that completed tasks are still shown as completed on the new plan. -
Corey
commented
Please? This is an essential feature. Having to recreate the same plan over and over again manually is unproductive. The fact that we can't import a plan from the Excel file that the plan was exported from is criminal.
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Dylan
commented
Is there any update on this, Planner Team? As many have noted, we are well beyond November and it appears to be radio silence.
Planner is a great tool that I want to fully adopt desperately, because we are already using Teams very heavily.
Please provide an update of some sort.
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Patrick
commented
At the moment we're using a preconfigured Sharepoint Tasklist template with about 40 filled Tasks but blank "assigned to" fields.
If a new project begins we're reusing the template in a new Tasklist and fill everything out.
If this workflow would be translated into Planner it could become an alternative. But without this functionality every new product in our organization that has to be a project would need to be created with about 40 tasks manually!
We're producing diecast products. And other than like in software oriented businesses where tasks could be more flexible many of our tasks have there origin from strictly documented processes that a company like ours has to follow. So our tasks in developing from prototypes to serialsproducts are almost the same for each product we produce.
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Anonymous
commented
Any update????
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Christian Oliver
commented
We would love to have a template we choose from when entering a new task. We have 10 different repetitive task types that we use on the manufacturing floor.. Machine, Assemble, Sew, Quality Check, Sort, Package... Each task no matter the customer shares about 80% common features but have unique information based on the customer order. It would be nice to start with a common framework and checklist that we could just be quickly modified per order.
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Anonymous
commented
I would like to impose a task template with a plan so that certain fields are mandatory before the task is added- e.g. start date as well as finish date, every task must be labeled etc. A custom field would be good to go with it, e.g. estimated hours per day (or if I could pull this info from MS Project)
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Anonymous
commented
Could roll this out tomorrow with this feature. Could import from an Excel templated spreadsheet. Can't recommend it without it
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Demond
commented
Just started using Planner and already hit this wall. I don't use copy plan because it creates a new group every time. Let's move this up. I want to abandon the paper, email, spreadsheet system but lack of templates/copy within existing group makes using planner too inefficient.
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Jenny Zubiate
commented
We're way past November, Planner Team. Any update on this feature's implementation? This feature is standard in other task management apps and it would improve our adoption of MS Teams to have this ability.
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DBean
commented
Pushing 4 YEARS on this issue. (May 2016)
I've abandoned Planner altogether because of this.
IT won't come up with an alternative, so everything is paper, email and spreadsheets. -
Maria E.
commented
A Planner administration panel that allows us to set defaults for when plans are created would be EXCEPTIONAL. Those defaults could be edited much the same way we do today, but upon creation they are rolled out in a consistent manner.
By defaults I mean --- default bucket names, default label names... which we can edit today.... and then allow us to edit progress and priority labels and then allow us to set defaults for them in the same way through an admin panel.
For example: We consistently use an Agile methodology in our PMO, so our buckets look like this:
Not Measured
Small (0-3 hrs)
Medium (4-11 hrs)
Large (12-23 hrs)
Extra Large (24+ hrs)
SOMETIMES (very few times) our buckets would change to more Waterfall style -- certain projects are still done in that method -- so they could be edited to Discover, Define, Design, Develop, Deploy, Maintain. But MOST (like 90% of our plans) would use the Agile methodology above. Would be amazing to be able to roll out NEW PLANS when created with those defaults.
Labels.... we use our labels in this fashion:
URGENT
ON HOLD
DELAYED
ON TARGET
Billable
Non-BillableWe would like to set those as defaults too.
Priorities and Progress are things we would like to have the ability to edit those too, then be able to set them as defaults through an admin panel.
You might say, these are things we can do in other programs, but we LOVE PLANNER. For Agile, it's the absolute best part of Office 365 for project management. Project just does not work for us in our Agile environment, we have it, we use it occasionally, and have been using it less and less because we CANNOT really adapt it to Agile in the way we like.
We have a template for the description that mirrors what you would see as a "User Story" --- would be awesome to pre-fill that area through an Admin panel too! So new tasks could have a guide in the Description field.
Bottom line, we need an admin panel for Planner to define these things.
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Maria E.
commented
A Planner administration panel that allows us to set defaults for when plans are created would be EXCEPTIONAL. Those defaults could be edited much the same way we do today, but upon creation they are rolled out in a consistent manner.
By defaults I mean --- default bucket names, default label names... which we can edit today.... and then allow us to edit progress and priority labels and then allow us to set defaults for them in the same way through an admin panel.
For example: We consistently use an Agile methodology in our PMO, so our buckets look like this:
Not Measured
Small (0-3 hrs)
Medium (4-11 hrs)
Large (12-23 hrs)
Extra Large (24+ hrs)
SOMETIMES (very few times) our buckets would change to more Waterfall style -- certain projects are still done in that method -- so they could be edited to Discover, Define, Design, Develop, Deploy, Maintain. But MOST (like 90% of our plans) would use the Agile methodology above. Would be amazing to be able to roll out NEW PLANS when created with those defaults.
Labels.... we use our labels in this fashion:
URGENT
ON HOLD
DELAYED
ON TARGET
Billable
Non-BillableWe would like to set those as defaults too.
Priorities and Progress are things we would like to have the ability to edit those too, then be able to set them as defaults through an admin panel.
You might say, these are things we can do in other programs, but we LOVE PLANNER. For Agile, it's the absolute best part of Office 365 for project management. Project just does not work for us in our Agile environment, we have it, we use it occasionally, and have been using it less and less because we CANNOT really adapt it to Agile in the way we like.
We have a template for the description that mirrors what you would see as a "User Story" --- would be awesome to pre-fill that area through an Admin panel too! So new tasks could have a guide in the Description field.
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TheReddieSpirit
commented
Would be great for our organization support tickets to all ready have certain members added, certain check list criteria set, and even a set attachment. Default due date three days out. It would save a lot of time and mistakes.
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Anonymous
commented
I too would like the template function. I do investigations for maritime company and most follow the same flow. I use Planner to assign tasks to members of the investigation team. I'd like to build a template with the universal task that apply to all investigations. I can always add and delete if they do not apply. Having the ability to lock the template would be useful.
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Anonymous
commented
Copy plan to existing groups is a must-have.
Plan templates are an alternate solution since i guess most uses of copy plans are to re-create a similar plan for a recurring project type.
Hope we'll get this copy to existing group or plan templare soon! -
Dan
commented
Can I now copy a plan within an existing group? People have been requesting this functionality for a year. It's so basic and obvious that this is necessary.
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Dylan Evans
commented
Like many others, we would find a template option within a plan invaluable. We have a Power Automate Flow that extracts any client negative feedback received in Forms and places it in Planner for corrective action. Our corrective action process requires the same elements to be completed every time and adding the checklist manually increases the likelihood of human error and the correct process not being followed.