
Microsoft Planner - k-mcgrady
https://blogs.office.com/2016/06/06/microsoft-planner-ready-for-showtime/
======
wiggity
We've been using the preview for a few weeks, and while it's nice to have an
in-built option for lightweight planning, Planner still pretty rough around
the edges.

It's missing features one might expect from something tied into 365 (of course
subjective):

1\. Weak outlook integration (e.g., can't send a card as a task, email, or
calendar invite)

2\. Weak sharepoint integration (e.g., can't browse for links to attachments).
It supports onedrive, but just for the logged in user.

3\. Limited (read: one) reporting or charting options. Maybe Gantts are a
bridge too far, but there are many useful visualizations beyond who has
outstanding tasks.

4\. Can't move cards to new boards (just new buckets)

5\. Can't clone/copy cards

And it's just plain buggy:

1\. Many links aren't actually links, but rather click handlers on divs,
breaking common UI like "right-click, open in new tab".

2\. Icons and previews have busted caching behavior, whereby "correct" icons
show for a while (sometimes seconds) before being replaced with old versions

3\. Cards will duplicate or disappear while editing, usually fixed with a
refresh

4\. and cetera.

There's potential for new features leveraging the 365 ecosystem, but its as
yet unrealized, and it has a long way to go before matching its most obvious
competitors in polish (UI and code quality, not necessarily style).

~~~
mgiannopoulos
By the way, how strange is it to use the term "bucket" every day? All Kanban-
inspired applications use the term "board" I thought

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nanch
Looks like they remade Trello. It also seems to have a certain "sterileness"
to it, or perhaps classiness; I can't tell. The colors look good though and
product brand looks good.

I hope they have some cool new features that inspire competition and
improvements from Trello. Competition is always good if it makes Trello
better!

But since I don't like where Microsoft is going with their privacy and
advertising policies, I probably won't use this.

~~~
alttab
Good luck competing with free.

~~~
SimonPStevens
But it does compete with free. It's included in all of the office 365 business
and enterprise subscriptions. So this is effectively free to a large set of
business customers.

------
threepipeproblm
“With Planner, we improved collaboration by about 20 percent..." The units
aren't mentioned, so I'm assuming it's the just standard units (collabotrons)

~~~
dankohn1
Man, that quote jumped out at me instead. You'd think they could apply some
rigor and add a few decimal places rather than saying "about". Or that perhaps
the marketing manager who wrote the release would realize how stupid that
quote sounds.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Precision isn't the same as accuracy.

------
cableshaft
The "board" screenshot looks suspiciously similar to Trello. I wonder how much
they aped its design for this?

~~~
galistoca
it is true but both trello and this app is based on Kanban, which tons of
other productivity tools like Jira implement so I guess it can't be blamed too
much

~~~
jldugger
There's 'cards in columns' and then there's cards with images, owners,
checklists and due dates on them.

~~~
alttab
Ya .... its Trello.

~~~
wingerlang
No, it's literally every kanban software - ever.

------
Dwolb
Microsoft is trying to deliver the entire white collar productivity experience
and I have to say I appreciate the vision but I hope a closed platform and
single value chain doesn't win this battle.

There's little bits of Trello (the main Planner functionality), Google Drive
(MSFT competitor Office365), and Slack (auto notifications).

I want the diverse value chain to thrive to increase innovation and
extensibility on each link in the space.

~~~
Analemma_
I'm not sure what you want Microsoft to do in that case. When a new product
(Trello, Slack) appears and it turns out tons of workers and enterprises like
it, Microsoft has 3 options:

1\. Ignore it, and hope it turns out to be a fad.

2\. Buy them and rebrand it

3\. Try to launch their own competitor version

1 isn't really an option, and between 2 and 3, I'd rather Microsoft did 3, so
we can have more competition. The fact that it's a closed platform and tied in
to all their services is just kind of unavoidable; it would be kind of silly
of them to launch a new product and _not_ tie it in to O365.

~~~
cwyers
There is a fourth choice, not mutually exclusive with 3: offer integration
between their services and the other tools. They're doing this with Dropbox to
an extent, for instance, while still competing with Dropbox.

------
jakubp
Based on the video on the page, looks like Microsoft Trello with Office 365
file sharing integration. More tools for basic project tracking... and I just
can't wait to meet clients who will use this instead of (heavier) TFS/Visual
Studio Online for the same purpose, complicating work of our teams even more
(I work at an offshore software house). Duh.

~~~
pat_space
Someone who feels my pain! Nothing like going into a client meeting and being
called old-school (I'm 26!) for using Redmine and pushed to use Trello. I work
at an offshore/onshore shop as well, and getting our dev teams set up in
client systems (that usually have user limits because the client uses the free
version) is a huge pain in the arse.

~~~
dexterous
Welcome to market fragmentation; the price we pay for... competition, I guess!
:P

------
spencerhakim
Not entirely related, but I'm getting an ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID on Chrome
for Android but not Chrome or Firefox on Windows. Same SHA256 reported in all
three browsers. The certificate was issued on May 4th, did Microsoft recently
change their SSL certificate chain?

~~~
satbyy
Certificate issuer "Microsoft IT SSL SHA2" is via Baltimore CyberTrust Root
[1], which exists in Firefox's CA store, as well as /etc/ssl/certs. It also
exists in Android (Settings -> Security -> Trusted Credentials). So, I'm not
sure where Chrome-on-Android looks for certs.

[1] [https://ssl-
tools.net/subjects/26102266b387fb8b911bc6d37b35b...](https://ssl-
tools.net/subjects/26102266b387fb8b911bc6d37b35bcd0081c0074)

Indeed SSL checker[2] says that "this certificate is not trusted by all
browsers". Intermediate cert probably missing.

[2] [https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-
checker.html#hostname=blogs.o...](https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-
checker.html#hostname=blogs.office.com)

~~~
iso-8859-1
Intermediate cert definitely missing:
[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=blogs.office....](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=blogs.office.com)

------
yardie
Is anyone using gantt[1] charts? I've been using them for product planning for
years. I know the kanban style planners are all the rage but I like the
proceduralness of having the entire project laid out in front of me.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart)

~~~
UK-AL
Gnantt charts force you to plan the entire thing up front.

That's at odds with the more agile way people develop software today.

Plus they almost never match up to reality. Good for planning the sequence of
things, but don't expect them to be accurate over the long term.

~~~
exclusiv
Agreed although we typically ensure we have plenty of tasks in parallel so one
missed item doesn't throw off the whole schedule. Our Gantt charts are
therefore ugly. :)

------
mgiannopoulos
The video shows planning, execution and monitoring/reporting of a project, yet
the application is called "Planner"? :)

~~~
adontz
Probably, because name Project was already taken by someone

~~~
_acme
It's taken by another Microsoft product.

~~~
cbsmith
I believe that was the joke...

------
justinjlynn
Immediately, I noticed the usage of doughnut charts to display project status.
Suboptimal visualisations significantly impede the adoption/market
differentiation of task and project management solutions and hamper their
usability, once adopted. I thought about what I might want in such an 'at a
glance' widget.

TL;DR: [https://i.imgur.com/hFpftp7.png](https://i.imgur.com/hFpftp7.png)

I suggest a vertical stream chart with a top legend (keeping the legend to one
line, abbreviating the status labels to save horizontal space if needed but
expanding them on mouse-over). In order to emphasise the present status, a
stacked horizontal bar chart placed immediately before the stream chart but
after the legend emphasises the current state. The inclusion of a stream graph
along with a stacked horizontal chart maintains the square overall shape of
the widget and the design's present temporal focus. Colour variations can use
the second dimension to represent changes in velocity on a per category basis
further increasing the information economy of the design, without cluttering
its appearance.

However, usage of space in the suggested design is much improved. In using the
same quantity of space as the presented widget, the presented design
communicates the current state, as well as, a large chunk of the projects
history with an emphasis on the near past.

Increasing the interactivity of the visualisation is a natural thought. Such
additions might include a contextual (mouse over or fade discover) highlight
on the chart (milestones/releases, key dates). Perhaps a forecast feature
allowing you to mouse over the chart and using the (mouse wheel nudge or touch
drag) into the future. If you (pinch zoom or mousewheel) a past area the graph
could rescale to emphasise that point in time.

In short, a bit more attention to the visualisation design would yield a
_much_ more substantial and powerful widget without increasing cognitive load
and complexity on the user's part of the interaction. I think that, with a bit
of focus, a well designed information retrieval and processing platform for
project planning and management could easily differentiate itself in the
marketplace even in the presence of gratis competition.

------
tzm
If you're looking for something similar, look at Troop[1] (Slack + Trello).
Seriously good workflow and execution.

[1] [https://troop.space](https://troop.space)

~~~
squiggy22
Execution on a mac safari is completely foobarred.

------
mikemajzoub
If anyone on the Microsoft Planner team is reading this: I haven't used it
yet, but did watch the video on the landing page. I'm impressed how you made
solutions that will work well with both touch and nontouch screens, along with
the ways users can filter and visualize their team's progress. These aren't
easy challenges to overcome so effectively, and I really enjoyed seeing your
solutions. Congratulations on your launch!

------
zippergz
Pardon my ignorance, but is this Windows-only, or what? I have an Office 365
subscription at work for Mac Office, but I barely ever use it. I can't figure
out how to access this, so I'm assuming it's not available on Mac? It wasn't
clear to me if there was a web component, or what...

~~~
blackoil
It is getting phased roll out, so you should get it in few weeks. MSFT should
improve its roll outs, It is getting all the PR today, but I can't access it.
By the time I'll get access, would have already forgotten about it. This
wastes PR effort.

------
blackoil
We use Trello business account. It is highly opinionated. It gives only one
view of cards. If I want activities sorted by time, there is no filter. Cards
by user view can also be improved. Graphs/Charts are also good tools for
understanding and presenting the projects.

------
wikibob
[http://tasks.office.com](http://tasks.office.com)

~~~
Corrado
Interestingly enough, we are using Office365 at work but "Planner" didn't show
up by default; I'm guessing that someone in our organization has to opt-in to
it. However, going to this link allows me to work with the new application as
if it were installed in my Office365 portal. Now to check to see if I can
collaborate with other people in my organization. :)

------
Fej
Looks cool.

...too bad a ton of people are going to completely write this off because of
the recent goodwill-burning Microsoft has been participating in. I wonder how
their internal departments feel about this?

------
astdb
Did anybody else get the certificate error for blogs.microsoft.com?

------
mgiannopoulos
Not sure why they couldn't just create these functionalities inside Microsoft
Project. (Probably because it might be harder to implement on an older code
base?)

~~~
xaqfox
Because having Project installed is an early step in being forced to use
Project.

------
dgudkov
Different task grouping (e.g. by users) -- that's smart. I wish Trello could
do this. Filtering via charts -- another smart feature. I like the product
concept.

------
brunorsini
One thing that caught my attention on the video is that people are expected to
curate each of their teams. Sounds a lot like G+ circles, it's a lot to ask of
users

------
rocky1138
Why?

~~~
zxcvcxz
Yeah I wish they would focus on making a good OS. I guess since people have to
use Windows for compatibility reasons MS doesn't care. They see the desktop
market as dwindling so they're trying to get into new markets. I just wish if
they were giving up on the desktop they would at least open source their
closed source software to allow it to run on other platforms so people aren't
forced to use a neglected OS.

~~~
galistoca
Maybe you didn't get the memo but MS is not an OS company anymore (at least
their top priority isn't). Everyone knows desktop platform has been
commoditized by the Web--you can do pretty much anything through the web
interface, and increasingly so as the computer processing powers go up.

They've been pretty clear about this new direction if you read the articles,
MS is a productivity company. That's why they're building all these
productivity apps on iOS and android.

~~~
technofiend
Microsoft used to create compelling new upgrades: consumers wanted the new
features. Now users are compelled to upgrade because they failed to or were
unable to opt out.

Same word, different meaning.

------
cbsmith
From the people who brought you Microsoft Project...

