We've received feedback that many users would like a task management tool to help stay organized and on track. While there are many solutions available, Emporia State offers a free tool to our faculty and staff called Microsoft Planner. Microsoft Planner is an excellent task management tool that allows you to assign users, set deadline dates, statuses of the task, and all of this with email notifications. Even if someone happens to forget about the task, an email will be sent before the deadline reminding the users that there is an upcoming task!To make the best use of Planner, you should have a SharePoint Group created. Follow this link to have a SharePoint Group created for your team. Once you have a SharePoint Group, a Plan will be populated in your Plans tab. Plans feature options such as exporting it to an excel spreadsheet, or even a 'Chart' which helps you understand a deeper, analytical prospective of how your plan is performing. Once you have a plan created, start populating it with your current tasks. You can create different 'buckets' which help you differentiate the tasks and their topic. The user-interface makes it very easy to set your due dates and assign people to the tasks. Once your task has been created, Microsoft Planner features multiple sections to help you and your team complete it. There is a section for notes, checklist items, and even attachments. All of these features can help your team know exactly what the task is and where you are in terms of completing it!
Also, because Microsoft Planner is part of Office 365, you can access it from any device through your browser. Microsoft Planner also gives you the option to sync your tasks to your Outlook calendar if you'd like your tasks to appear there as well. The options are limitless for Planner, follow this link to check it out for yourself!
Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies
