Planner Question?

Question

How can an Office 365 planner/plan be shared with a large group of people without having to type in each individual name? Can a planner/plan be shared by address and still be editable by those with the address? Can planners/plans be shared with groups? Groups didn't seem to come up when typing in a member to add. Thanks so much! I apologize that this may be an inappropriate posting thread. I couldn't find the precise Category, Topic, and Product. :(

Answer 1

Hi klsokoli,

When you create a new plan in Planner, an Office 365 group is created alongside. This group can be viewed in OWA, OneDrive, so all the conversations in Planner are available in Outlook 2016, Outlook on the Web and the Outlook Groups Mobile Apps.

If you have created a private plan in Planner, then there isn’t any member added. To add the members, you must select the ellipses and click Members (screenshot 1), this will take you to OWA (screenshot 2) and here you can click Add members to add the members to the group.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Reference: Add and remove group members in Outlook

After you’ve added the members, you’ll see the drop-down list of the existing members once you try to assign a task.

When a new distribution list is created, we add members manually one by one, in the same way members must be added one by one in Office 365 groups.

To know more about Office 365, please read the following articles:

Why you should upgrade your distribution lists to groups in Outlook

Learn about Office 365 Groups

If you wish to upgrade your distribution list to an Office 365 group, then please read the following article for detailed steps:

Upgrade distribution lists to Office 365 Groups in Outlook

Let me know if have any other doubt.

Thanks,

Neha

Answer 2

Ok, Thanks so much for your time and help, Neha! I appreciate it! :)

Answer 3

Hi klsokoli,

Do you need further help?

Regards,

Neha

Answer 4

Hello Neha,

I appreciate your prompt response! Thank you so much.

Forgive me for probably seeming a bit slow. When I go to the Planner Hub, I do see plans there, but I guess I'm unclear how they got to be a part of the Office 365 group when I may not have actually added anyone to the Plan yet, and I haven't made the plan public, either. How would I assign a task to someone in the Office 365 group when/if I'm not sure who's there? Surely, it's not everyone in my entire work organization, is it? Honestly, this isn't really even my question, but I was trying to help someone with Planner earlier, and they stumped me with how to do this, so I thought I'd try to find out myself for any future reference. Thank you for your patience with me.  It may seem implausible to want or need to have, say, 20-30 people (or more) as part of a Plan, but let's say for the sake of argument, that's exactly what you wanted to do. Would you have to, or could you even, create something like a distribution group so that all people in the group could be included as Plan members? Then, each could be assigned certain tasks to complete? Presumably, you would like this same group of 20-30 people to be a part of additional work Plans, as well, but you don't want to have to select each one individually for each of the different Plans they will be members of. Is there a way to do that (create a distribution list/group to assign to a Plan), and how, if so please? It's seems likely I just don't understand what the Office 365 group is, how to add members to it, or how the group works. I apologize.

When sharing a plan by address, where does the address come from? Just copying and pasting from the url field, or is there another way to generate a shareable Plan address so that others can join the Plan and contribute?

Again, thank you so much for your time, help, and patience!

Answer 5

Hi klsokoli,

When you say ‘Group’, do you mean Office 365 group?

Plans in Planner are connected to Office 365 groups. When you create a new Plan in Planner it automatically creates an Office 365 group.

When you visit Planner Hub, you see your existing Plans, these Plans are also your Office 365 groups.

To answer your questions:

1. How can an Office 365 planner/plan be shared with a large group of people without having to type in each individual name?

As mentioned above, Planner is connected to Office 365 group. When you add members in Office 365 group, the plan is also shared with the added members.

2. Can a planner/plan be shared by address and still be editable by those with the address?

Do you mean sharing the Plan with external users? If so, then yes, it is possible.

3. Can planners/plans be shared with groups?

Do you mean sharing with Office 365 Group? ****If so, the answer is Yes.

If anything is misunderstood, please let me know.

Thanks,

Neha