Add Tasks to Outlook Calendar Automatically
Add ability to view tasks that have assigned due dates in Outlook calendar
Lindsay
shared this idea
Beyond the iCalendar feed, we will continue to explore our options for adding tasks to Outlook Calendar automatically. We would love to hear more of your thoughts on the following:
-What information from tasks would you like to carry over to Outlook Calendar?
-How many different plans would you like to view on your Outlook Calendar?
-Any specific scenarios or examples of how this would fit into your workflow
Cheers,
The Planner Team
65 comments
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ABIGAIL BARNES
commented
For quick implementation, using the features that Outlook Calendar already has:
1. Add a Plan as a distinct calendar - this appears to already be a function with Outlook "Groups".
Then, on that calendar, the following should appear:
2. A Task should appear as an "All day" appointment on its Due Date.
--- For tasks that have a Start Date and Due Date, the Outlook appointment should span between the two dates.
--- Potentially filter Tasks based on who they are assigned to - so only Tasks that the person has assigned to them will show up on their version of the Calendar
3. The title of the task should appear as the title of the "appointment".
4. The name of the Planner Bucket that the Task is in should appear as the "Organizer" or the "Location"
5. Notes on the Task should appear as Notes on the Outlook appointment
6. A link to the Task should also appear in the Notes section of the appointment
--- Links to Tasks are already a feature of PlannerThis is basic integration that utilizes features that already exist, hopefully making it easier to integrate. Full integration with all of Planner's comments/checklist/attachments etc can come later.
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Hazzel
commented
I would like our team to be able to have their to-dos on their calendar, even if tasks are completed.
Ideally in Outlook, they should be able to see any notes, checklists, comments, flags, priorities, and both the start and finish date. Any attached files should be linked to or listed out. It would also be amazing to be able to check off the task as completed from the calendar, or from a link in the calendar.
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Anonymous
commented
Dear Planner Team,
since 4 years the user asking for the feature of syncing as between planner and outlook.
As a starting point, it would be good to get changes done in planner synchronized via the icalendar link to outlook. For me, it doesn't make sense to add my Planner Tasks to the outlook calendar only once and not seeing any updates. Currently, I would have to add the planner link always when done any changes. That doesn't make sense to me.
Please implement this that couldn't be such a big deal.
At least a one-way communication from Planner to outlook would be nice to get and later a two-way communication would be a good enhancement. -
mayer
commented
NO!
Calendars are a MUST DO. Why then force it into calendar? I want to have the ability to decide it I want it on the calendar -
Marti
commented
If the following information from tasks/planner could flow to an Outlook Calendar, it would replace our need for combining planners across channels within a Team into one (which is a separate request in "Tell Us More") as we could use the Outlook Calendar instead of the planner for this view.
The *Project Manager* role would need to be able to see:
-Bucket Name/Task Name/Assigned/with the color of the label, and this should display on the Due Date, for all Team Members assigned a Task. If no Due Date assigned, it wouldn't need to flow to Outlook. It would be ideal if when user clicked on this item in Outlook, it would open the Task in Teams to allow user to see details. There should be a setting in Team Planner to "enable" the flow to Outlook, as in our use of Teams, we wouldn't need the Task from some Channels to flow to Outlook. This setting should allow naming a specific Outlook calendar, or if no specific calendar assigned, allow it to default to the main calendar.The *Individual User* Role would need to be able to see:
- Same as above but for only their tasks.Again, this functionality would replace our request to be able to see across multiple planners in one, or be able to view all Tasks assigned to a user across multiple Teams.
Thanks,
Marti -
Sara
commented
-What information from tasks would you like to carry over to Outlook Calendar?
Task Title
Task Start and End Dates
Assigned to-How many different plans would you like to view on your Outlook Calendar?
As many as my company needs to display - unlimited
-Any specific scenarios or examples of how this would fit into your workflow
Currently no workflows are configured, but if it makes life better, I will research and configure some. Helpful suggestions are welcome, if you've discovered meaningful workflow steps that would make life awesome - please mention them.
Our need is to display the tasks that are in the planner in everyone's Outlook calendars...when the tasks start date arrives, it needs to be set AUTOMATICALLY to "In Progress", then when the task end date is over, it needs to set the status to "complete" AUTOMATICALLY.....the tasks are showing in my planner and calendar. I am in the team however. Do I have to add everyone to the team, or can they use a link from the calendar to add to their outlook?
I haven't tested if adding new tasks to Teams is updating automatically in my outlook yet, but this question was posted in 2016, and its 10/2019...I'm hoping this is solved and is working already.
Thought Id answer the Admin questions in hopes that it helps somehow, and perhaps for suggestions from anyone that is already skilled with teams/planner/tasks/workflows.
Thanks!
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Casey
commented
We are utilizing Planner to create onboarding plans in Teams for new teammates at my company, so we are stacking many "tasks" in the same day and primarily operating from the schedule view. We would love the added functionality of being able to choose a start and end TIME for each task, and being able to sync those times with Outlook calendar with each assignment or when the entire plan is published to outlook. Also, it would help with the prioritization/organization of tasks on the same day in schedule view. Right now, they can only be prioritized/organized by alphabetical order as far as I know.
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Anonymous
commented
When creating a task it's possible to set a start and due date. What we also need is the possibility to set a start and end time as in Outlook when creating a meeting including an information whether or not the person I assign the task at a specific time is already booked or not. As soon as I schedule the task and assign it to a person it is implemented to this person's calendar in Outlook. And the other way round - when a user organizes itself in the Outlook calendar there should be an option to add that task from the calendar into a specific plan in Planner.
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PK
commented
Shannon summarized my thoughts perfectly in her comment back on January 17. What is the purpose of exposing the calendar automatically to the user as a member of the group when it offers literally no functionality. Is this a step on the path to it functioning like one would expect it to or some unintended byproduct that we shouldn't be reading into? No one likes the publicly published .iCal solution -- some may tolerate it, but it's not a good solution.
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David
commented
The iCalendar option isn't ideal as it is too insecure (you are basically making your calendar public by publishing it to iCalendar). I would like to see tasks in Outlook Calendar online in a secure way.
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Jeremy
commented
Any Official Update? It seems too long as the last official update was July 2018. It is coming to another year.
Our small Team is moving into Office 365, and seeing how Team, Kaizala under Group - as well as bringing in Shared Inbox, Planner and Calendar together are great. However, not able to view all Planner event of all Groups in 1 Calendar view is very disturbing. It should be easily integrated, on and off by a simply switch.
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Kelly Hammerle
commented
We would like a way for assigned tasks to be color coded by who they're assigned to when they show up in Outlook calendar.
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Shannon
commented
What is the purpose of the automatically created plan calendar in "All Group Calendars" in Outlook if it isn't going to show the tasks assigned in the plan in Planner? We've used the publish to Outlook calendar option in Planner but all that did was make another calendar in Outlook under "Other Calendars". This new one does show the tasks so the original one is basically useless and the new one works but has security issues as many people have noted.
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Anonymous
commented
Our users would like to view their Planner tasks in their Outlook tasks. There is a possibility to publish the Planner plan and import the iCal link into Outlook. However, by doing do, the link becomes public and anyone who gets hold of it, will be able to access the content of the Planner plan. We don't consider this secure enough and have therefore disabled this possibility. Still - the need is there and are users are asking for it. When is Microsoft planning (pardon the pun :-)) to introduce a more safe method of integrating Planner and Outlook? (To-Do would also be nice to have, but for the time being we would prioritize secure Outlook integration).
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Claudio
commented
I simply need to see the tasks in my Calendar as I need 1 single place where to look at when I have to know/define what to do today. I cannot check on different solutions, therefore please just ensure that the tasks in Planner (and also Outlook) can be included in the Calendar, so that the time will also be blocked and people cannot invite for meetings etc.
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Chris
commented
This is why I stopped using Microsoft products. I trusted MS for my organization's tools, and EVERY - not some of the time, but EVERY time I set up and test a tool to see how it can save me team time and money, the feature is broken, poorly conceived or flat out ugly. Usually all three at once. Mailchimp, slack, trello, GSuite - Open Office ALL better than o365. Spending time researching the web like a chump, trying to find user communities to confirm that an advertised feature does not, in fact work is a WASTE OF TIME and money. I no longer trust MS - its obvious you don't care and you can no longer compete. Planner is such a rip off of trello I'm shocked there's no lawsuit - likewise for Teams and Slack. The only possible defense would have to be "Oh, don't worry, none of our stuff actually works". Fix it, don't fix it, I stopped caring today. Just. Like. Microsoft.
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Anonymous
commented
Many users plan their "To-Do's" on a weekly or daily basis. To do work needs planning and ressources, which means some users love to add their To-Do's to their daily tasks in the calender not getting disturbed during their tasks. Why does Planner does not support to add a "Block" into the own calender without the need to add that block additionally in Exchange.....if a task is closed before the due date, the calender entry is automatically deleted.
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David
commented
If a task has been assigned to me, I would like that due date to show up on my calendar. It might show up in the all day slot with the "Free" status.
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Anonymous
commented
The current paradigm of publishing the calendar and importing into Outlook isn't feasible for organizations that value internal and/or customer privacy. These two Microsoft products should talk to each other without having to publish the calendar publicly. In Outlook a group calendar is created for each plan, why can't that group calendar have the tasks on it?
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Weston Technologies
commented
This "integration" has never worked properly. Once you've published the web calendar and opened it in Outlook, one-way updates only occur rarely, and in some instances not at all. But there is a workaround that at least makes it minimally functional. Please note, this only works for local instances of Outlook, not the online (OWA) version:
- Publish the project calendar in Planner, but do not click "Add to Outlook"
- Copy the iCal link provided
- Open desktop version of Outlook
- Go to: File / Account Settings / Account Settings
- Open tab "Internet Calendars"
- Click "New..."
- Paste the iCal link from your project, and click "Add"
- Now double-click the calendar you just added (or select, and click "Change...")
- Rename the folder to something more friendly in the field "Folder Name"
- Uncheck the checkbox under "Update Limit"
- Click OK
- Click "Close" to close out the settings MDINow, instead of updating at odd, seemingly random intervals, you can add the calendar to a Send/Receive group (or just the default group) and set any interval please. You can also include the group in the F9 Send/Receive updates to force an update whenever you like.
This is a ridiculous work-around, and it shouldn't be necessary, but at least it lets you see current Planner scheduled items in Outlook (and in overlapping calendars, no less!). I don't hold out hope that we'll see this rumored Outlook plugin any time soon, and those plugins are always a gigantic stability nightmare in any case. It would have been far better if they'd gone with direct integration through Exchange, but I guess that's just not in the cards.
Hope this helps someone,
Weston