Microsoft Updates New Planner App in Teams with Accessibility Features
Published: Sep 26, 2024
Key Takeaways:
- Microsoft has introduced a labels column in Planner’s Grid view, making it easier for users to organize and categorize tasks for improved project tracking.
- Updates include keyboard editing for task start and due dates, as well as enhanced Narrator support for better accessibility in reading priority and progress fields.
- Microsoft has addressed issues on the My Day page in the Planner app.
Microsoft has released several new capabilities and improvements for the Planner app in Microsoft Teams. The company has added a new labels column in the basic plans’ Grid view, designed to help users better organize and categorize tasks with greater efficiency.
Earlier this year, Microsoft started rolling out the new Planner experience in Teams to all commercial customers. It integrates various task management and planning tools, including Microsoft Planner, Microsoft To Do, and Microsoft Project, into a single, unified platform within Microsoft Teams. This new Planner app also includes a Copilot integration to help users with task management and planning.
Microsoft highlighted that the labels column in Grid view was one of the top requests that should make it easier for Planner users to track and manage their projects. “Try it out by navigating to Grid view for any basic plan and selecting “Add label” for any task in the Labels column. You can edit the name of the label by selecting the label on the task, and filter by label to get a more granular view of your plan,” Microsoft explained.
Microsoft Planner app in Teams adds plan accessibility improvements
Microsoft has also rolled out a couple of improvements for the Planner app in Microsoft Teams. The latest update makes it easier for users to understand and use the label menu in the task details page.
Additionally, users can now use the keyboard to edit start and due dates associated with a task. Microsoft has updated the Narrator tool to ensure that it correctly reads selected values for task’s priority and progress fields.
Microsoft has also released an update to fix a couple of issues on the My Day page in the Planner app in Teams. This release should help to ensure that tasks due today and newly created tasks are correctly displayed on the My Day page.
Earlier this month, Microsoft started rolling out the web version of its new Planner app to Microsoft 365 customers. This new Planner web app offers a central hub to help users access all their plans, projects, and to do lists.