Project Online, Planner & Teams: The winning combination

Hi lovely readers,

The webinarOn the 12th of December 2017 I took a deep dive, into “the world of webinars”! Microsoft offered Projectum and myself a platform to talk about our view on Project Management and the tools Microsoft has to offer.

The webinar was a huge success, with 900+ people signing up and 437 people attending the live show. This article is sort of a wrap up and a “More information” kind of post. If you haven’t seen the recording yet: here’s your chance.

The general idea

The idea of the webinar was to show the connected possibilities using the currently available features in the 3 different tools that are available for Office 365 users.

There’s a nice solution that gets users the details that they need without the cumbersome interfaces that they don’t work in on a daily basis. PM’s like Project Online, but most Team members don’t visit or do enough in the tool to like it as much, they have more fun with Teams or Planner, which are tools closer to their hearts.

If you look at the recording (link above) here’s a nice timetable that you can use to get to the interesting parts of the webinar right away:

01.00 Actual start
03.20 The office 365 cloud offering
04.15 Project portfolio and work management
04.50 Setting the stage
06.00 The winning combination
08.00 Project center and a portfolio solution
08.50 The construction project
10.00 Some project online reports that come out of the box
11.00 Linking the construction task
12.30 First round of questions
15.30 Look into Planner
16.30 The construction planner board
17.20 Creating a new card
19.30 Chart view in planner
20.30 Second round of questions
23.50 Look into Teams
24.30 The planner board in Teams
26.20 There is more
27.20 Power bi content pack
27.40 Third round of questions
31.20 Another look into the winning combination
32.20 Final round of questions
37.20 Download the PowerPoint, end of the webinar

The links I shared

I shared some links during the webinar here they are to click on and enjoy directly (I also corrected the broken link from the webinar):

The questions I didn’t answer right away

Project Online and Dynamics integration?

Integrations are always tricky. This is because every tool is developed and designed for it’s specific purpose. And it might even be implemented a long time ago and not with integration in mind.

Therefore I would say, yes it’s possible, but be aware of a difficult and intense project getting it working the way you intend it to work.

Notifications on tasks I’m allocated to, and not the others?

As I write this post the feature is under development and can be monitored through the UserVoice.

Exporting tasks to Excel and MS Project?

There’s a UserVoice request for this feature. But it is only planned. Maybe you could help out by voting yourself.

Dependencies in cards?

There is a UserVoice request for this. But no action is taken yet. Maybe you could help out by voting yourself.

Integration with outlook?

As I write this post the feature is under development and van be monitored through the UserVoice.

There’s an app for this, but be aware, I have not tested it myself. So I don’t know if it performs as expected.

Creating a template in Planner?

There is a request for this, but not a lot of votes. Help out and vote to get Microsoft’s attention on this.

Resize cards?

There’s no request for this in UserVoice yet. And it’s currently not possible.

Different channels in Teams different planner boards?

Yes this is possible and I was wrong about the situation where only one planner board could be linked to Teams.

How to allow external users to a tenant?

Here’s a how to guide to get external users on a tenant.

More information

One of the questions was if I was open for doing live demonstrations on the solution I presented in the webinar. And I would love that! That would be a great way for me to get in touch with your organizations project management wishes. If you would like to get such a live demonstration, please connect with me through the company website. Make sure you mention the webinar and my name and I’ll get in touch with you asap.

Hope you like the webinar and the content on this page. Keep an eye out for more great content soon.

Kind regards,

Erik van Hurck