What’s new in Microsoft Planner – May 2025

Microsoft

May 28, 2025

This month, explore the latest enhancements to Microsoft Planner, including the streamlined Status Reports feature for project updates, expanded functionality of the Project Manager across multiple views, and preparations for transitioning from Project for the web to Planner. Thank you as always for your feedback in shaping our product!

Generate status reports in minutes

Are you looking to streamline your project updates? The new Status Reports feature in Planner in Teams is here to help! You can quickly and easily auto-synthesize your plan's progress, milestones, risks, and next steps, ensuring everyone on your team has shared visibility. Customize these reports to fit any audience and timeframe, making your updates more relevant and impactful.

To get started, navigate to the Planner app in Teams and open a premium plan, or a plan with Project Manager that has at least ten tasks. Select the Reports tab, specify the reporting period, and add any specific details you want to include. The generated report will be displayed in a Loop component for real-time coediting, making collaboration easier than ever. You can also share the newsletter in SharePoint.

Please note, this feature is currently rolling out to English-US customers and requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Loop license. For more information, see our latest blog post, “Generate status reports in minutes with Project Manager agent in Planner.”

Utilize Project Manager across multiple views

Project Manager agent is no longer limited to Board view. Now users can also access the Project Manager in Grid, Timeline, and People view.

This allows users to:

Assign tasks to the Project Manager across all four views: Grid, Board, People, and Timeline.
Access the Project Manager as a plan member in both People view and the assigned pivot in Board view.
Drag and drop tasks to the Project Manager bucket to assign tasks to Project Manager in both Board and People view.

Transition to Planner and prepare for the retirement of Project for the web

Starting this August, Planner is set to replace Project for the web, bringing all your task management tools under one unified platform. Users will automatically be redirected to Planner, which offers enhanced features like Goals, Sprints, task history, and advanced dependencies, alongside AI powered tools like Copilot and Project Manager agent. No need to worry about migration or licensing changes—everything transitions seamlessly!

To prepare for this change, administrators can notify users and update internal resources to reflect the new Planner environment. We’re currently working to close some of the gaps between Project for the web and Planner, such as the ability to view and manage non-default environment plans directly in Planner which was released last month. Learn more in our recent blog post, “Transitioning to Microsoft Planner and retiring Project for the web.”

Share your feedback

Tell us what you think about Planner using the Feedback button in the top right corner of the app. We also encourage you to share any feature requests by adding your ideas to the Planner Feedback Portal. Your feedback helps inform our feature updates, and we look forward to hearing from you as you try Planner’s new and existing capabilities!

Resources

Check out the Planner adoption page.

Check out the Microsoft 365 roadmap for feature descriptions and estimated release dates for Planner.

Watch Planner demos for inspiration on how to get the most out of Planner in Teams.

Visit the Planner help page to learn more about the new Planner.

Published May 28, 2025

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9 Comments

AlexNak
Copper Contributor
Jun 11, 2025
It's very disappointing that powerful features like easy to use Power Automate flows and Calendar View are not making the cut. These are currently part of Planner Basic but won't be part of Planner Premium (for the Web); they are not mentioned on the RoadMap and I don't see any mention of them in any relevant Blog posts.

These are incredibly valuable easy to use features that are inexplicably being left behind in favor of an AI Project Manager that auto-generates random tasks based on buzz words? This doesn't bring any value to Professional Project Managers and appears to be targeted at novices who struggle to even come up with tasks for their plan. If the goal of this product merger is to make Project Management easier to implement and use, why discard features that are already part of the platform and also make it more customizable and user friendly?

Planner Premium has been integrating the old features of Project for the Web for over a year now and it is still less feature rich than Project for the Web and without some of the features of Planner Basic, with the only actual *new* product additions are custom backgrounds and this rehashed Copilot agent that requires a Loop subscription. It's shockingly underwhelming for the amount of time spent on developing this product.
- robhprojility
  Copper Contributor
  Jun 12, 2025
  Hi Alex, not going to argue against your points at all b/c they all very valid. I WILL say in having worked with many clients using Planner Premium (formerly Project for the web), it's generally been a huge step up in functionality. It helps folks go from collaborative work into more structured project planning and management effectively. Once they see the difference in the two tools they get it, and can make a decision on one versus the other based upon their needs.
  Sure Premium it's definitely missing some things that SHOULD be there, but for most folks see the value in the new tools. Example is calendars - in project planning calendars, while useful, get waaaaayy too cluttered with tasks, which is why the 'timeline' (or Gantt) view is extremely helpful in laying out all tasks on a visual timeline. Calendars are available in the MS Project Pro client today but honestly we don't find many formal PMs using these at all. But it would be nice feature to re-add in for the simpler schedules!
  Def agree the AI component is a huge work in progress, as we're all trying to figure out the best use cases for this new tech!
  If you look at Planner Premium today, Microsoft has added baselining capability (a HUGE ask for a long time!) so you can now do basic variance analysis. There's still stuff missing (actuals, anyone??) and I would agree with you that adding high value features makes alot of sense versus experimental stuff, but that's why these forums are great for both users like us and Microsoft to listen.
DG-in-KC
Copper Contributor
Jun 04, 2025
The fact that Planner is unable to easily import an excel file or .csv file is just beyond me. I had to learn how to code to use copilot in order to create a flow to import an excel sheet with a few dozen tasks. I don't understand why there are so many simple integrations or communications with other Microsoft products that are simply MISSING, but exist in other non-MS apps.
BrianSmithPhotos
Iron Contributor
Jun 03, 2025
Hi NancyatMSFT can you clarify the term 'platform' in your posting - "bringing all your task management tools under one unified platform." I tend to think of platform as the underlying architecture - so does this mean that a single API (Graph or Dataverse) will be able to access any task come August? Or do you mean platform just as the application that gives a unified UX, but the platforms beneath are still disparate? Thanks, Brian.
JacobW620
Copper Contributor
Jun 01, 2025
Why am I still confused about the tool and the missing core features that all other project and task management tools have?
Sorting columns in grid view
Bulk change tasks
Group tasks in Grid view
Seemlessly move tasks from 1 project to another
Mentions in comments and task descriptions
Advance task descriptions with image upload enabled
Comments to the task on the task and not in a Teams chat
Easy to move a project from one team to another team
The custom fields library is super limited
Make it easy to move a task from a basic plan to a premium plan
I might come back and expand the list once I encounter more obstacles, as I do on a weekly basis. Perhaps someday you will create one tool to manage projects and then make that tool exceptional.
- ContentWriter
  Copper Contributor
  Jun 09, 2025
  I'm going to add Calendar View in Planner 1. Once you pay extra for Planner, you suddenly lose Calendar View.
ProjectUzer
Copper Contributor
May 30, 2025
After a few years of hoping for a great product, I'm considering going back to Project Online just because the core features exist for planning, tracking, and sharing project information. There seems to be a great team of developers working on Planner, but the product management/feature approvals are not impactful at all. Someone please get the core features included before touting AI agents that still leave users without tools they want and need. I'm guessing anything tied to AI will win as a feature right now. Maybe try dogfooding Planner on a sizeable project to validate complaints and feature requests mentioned on the forums, comments, feedback, etc.
RaulSoares
Copper Contributor
May 30, 2025
Bom dia! NancyatMSFT obrigado pelas atualizações. Cada dia mais o planner vai ganhando corpo. Mas ainda me restam algumas dúvidas - Qual a previsão para adicionar a funcionalidade de menção por @ no planner premium e básico assim como é no outlook ou teams?
marcgraub
Copper Contributor
May 30, 2025
New update that misses key features like @mentions, better comment formatting, inserting blocks of code or treating the comments as first-class citizens, allowing, for example, to upload images or videos.
Are all these updates oriented to managers?

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