Task Management in Microsoft 365: Choosing the right approach

How to pick the best app for your task management needs 

Reading time: 10 minutes

If you are looking for a way to manage your tasks or workload in Microsoft 365, you might be overwhelmed by the number of apps available that seem to offer a solution.  

At our recent Your 365 Coach Live on Task Management we explored the abilities of To Do, Planner and Planner Premium. But  I’ve also been sharing the value of Microsoft Loop in this space with members of Your 365 Coach Community, and personally I still think Microsoft Lists has a role to play too. 

So which app should you use? 

I think the answer is produced from two key ingredients:  

1. How you like to see tasks presented and work together with your team 
2. What type of task or workload you’re trying to manage 

Number 1 is very personal, and you’ll best discover this through exploration, testing and team trials.

We can help you more with number 2 by suggesting some of the activities that better lend themselves to certain apps. 

Here’s a graphic I’ve talked through with people about the four primary approaches within your Microsoft 365 licence for Task Management. (There’s actually five on there but Planner Premium is a paid for add on) 

To summarise this slide Planner and To Do are your core task management apps, it’s just what they do. I’ll talk a bit more about them further on. 

Microsoft Loop

Loop, however, is primarily a collaboration platform, but does offer some great tracking options too, particularly the useful Task list, Kanban and Checklist components. Loop's strength is it’s awesome fluidity and ease to involve many coworkers, within the tools they are already familiar with like Teams and Outlook.

A super bonus is that Loop uses Planner as it’s task engine, so jobs you assign in Loop can also be tracked in the Planner App in Teams. 

I think Loop excels in the arena of quick agile “non-project” projects, you might recognise these as side of the desk activities like organising a team event, chasing down content for presentation, a quick recovery plan when something unexpected happens. Quick to create, easy to use, dispose when finished. 

Microsoft Lists

Lists on the other hand is totally opposite to Loop, it offers structure over flexibility. Lists is the data daddy of Microsoft 365, it has always been core to SharePoint and in more recent years has been given its own spotlight. 

Lists can be used for thousands of purposes, not just task management, so as you might expect from a generic tool it doesn’t include things like push notifications or interactivity with the Planner App. But don’t write Lists off, as it still brings somethings to the party:

• Custom solution - The generic nature of Lists means that it’s really customisable, you can easily collect volumes of bespoke meta-data, create differing views of your tasks, add conditional formats to columns and set up reminders. 
• Structured work - Lists have solid data structures which lends themselves to bulk or high repetition task. Things like review stages, content sign offs, expense approvals. Lists love automations so approval steps or other triggers mean flows can easily be added. Item level version history adds a high degree of auditability too. 
• Task collection – Forms capability added to Lists can collect your tasks. If you want your team focused on completing tasks, not adding them to a system you can let your consumers have a portal to add work requests. Think ticketing systems, equipment orders or holiday requests. 
• Transparency -  Lists have one final uniqueness over Planner. If you invite a coworker into your plan, they can always make changes. Sharing a view link to a list means you can invite others to monitor progress only. 

To Do and Planner

So then back to To Do and Planner (and Planner Premium), where do they feature. This slide from our webinar helps answer that question.

To Do - personal

Our thoughts on this are that To Do is the place for your ‘me’ tasks that you set yourself, to place within your schedule. To Do works seamlessly with other apps like Outlook to easily turn emails into To Do tasks. 

If you need a bit more structure than just a flat list a personal plan in Planner might also be a possibility.

Planner - shared

Planner is your group choice, when teams of people are working to complete goals toward a common purpose using a recognisable board or grid approach. Planner is fairly rigid and the interface simplistic, but it meets the needs of straight forward work tracking with several people. 

Planner Premium adds extra punch to plans and is suited to more complex project work. It’s ideal for large groups of people or when elements of larger tasks are divided between people by using sub tasks. Additional dependencies between tasks can be formally indicated and displayed in timelines. 

I hope that this little knowledge share has been useful. If you're embarking on a journey into the task management world of Microsoft 365, you would benefit from our on-demand learning course. 

Master Task Management in Microsoft 365 is led by our very own Microsoft MVP, Scott and offers over 40 expert-led video lessons, quizzes, a companion guide, cheat sheets, and access to a private community. Whether you’re a project lead, entrepreneur, remote worker, or student, this Masterclass simplifies task management using Microsoft Planner, To Do, Lists, Loop, and the new Planner Premium. 

Enrol today to boost your career, manage tasks with confidence, and enhance personal efficiency. 

Matthew 

Matthew Burrell is a consultant at Your 365 Coach

Published 15 August 2024

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