We are excited to introduce a new effort where we will be providing brief (“byte”-sized) overviews about the technology we use at NEOMED as well as the policies and procedures that support them. These training “bytes” will supplement our other training efforts to help us better maximize the use of our systems, be more efficient with the technology we use, provide a better understanding and awareness of our technology, and encourage ideas and collaboration on how we can leverage our technology more effectively.
Today’s technology “byte” is on Microsoft Planner. While it may be familiar to some, Microsoft Planner is one of several Office 365 services available to us at NEOMED through our overarching Office 365 subscription.
What is Microsoft Planner?
- Planner is a lightweight task management tool that enables you to organize your or your team’s work. In Planner, you can create new plans for yourself or a group of people, coordinate and assign tasks among your team, share files, discuss what you are working on, and see progress updates at a glance through built-in dashboards.
- Planner can be used to manage your Department or Office’s tasks, track an approval process, help plan for an event, and much more.
- Visually, Planner looks like a whiteboard with columns of sticky notes (see above). You have the ability to move those sticky notes (called “Cards” in Planner) into different columns (called “Buckets” in Planner).
- Two of the largest benefits of Planner is its integration with other Microsoft services like Groups, Teams, SharePoint and Outlook, and it comes at no additional cost (it is a part of our overarching University Office 365 subscription).
How can I access Microsoft Planner?
- You can access Planner through a web browser:
- By going directly to Planner at tasks.office.com and logging in with your NEOMED email and password.
- You can also access Planner from within Office 365. Once logged in, select the grid icon on the top-left of your window, select “All apps” and then scroll down to select “Planner” (see the example below).
- Like other Office 365 services, Microsoft has also published a user-friendly mobile app for Planner. You can find it on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.
How do I use Microsoft Planner?
- I highly recommend viewing the ‘Quick Start’ video offered by Microsoft (less than 4 minutes long) and if you want to learn more, you can explore the additional training videos offered by Microsoft. Additionally, if you have questions regarding Planner, please contact me at jwagner@neomed.edu.
- Some people learn best by doing - you can test out Planner by creating a Plan just for you. To do so, select “New Plan” in Planner, set it to “Private”, and select “Create plan”. (see example below).
How does Planner integrate with other Microsoft services?
- Planner natively integrates with other Office 365 services and complements one another well. By using Planner, you can integrate your tasks into Outlook, attach and view task documentation by linking to SharePoint, discuss a project within Teams while having your Plan open, hop onto a Teams video call and much more!
Stay tuned for more technology “bytes” in the future. Thanks for reading.
-Submitted by Jonathan Wagner