Helping the PMO succeed, with Microsoft technology
Category: Planner Premium (Project for the web)
Project for the Web was released in October 2019, and was renamed to Planner (with premium features) by the end of 2024. It’s a modern way of looking at scheduling and it lives on top of the Dataverse. We can use the Dataverse to make easy connections with other (Microsoft) applications.
As an example, we can easily connect to it using Model Driven Power Apps or analyzing the data using Power BI.
In this Category on The Project Corner Blog I have gathered all articles dedicated to this service. I hope you will enjoy reading about it.
I was recently asked how to report on resources in Planner Premium. And this got me thinking, could I do reporting on both planner (only cards and no hours/capacity) and Premium in one go?
Turns out you can, but… it takes some work to get there. Let me show you what to do, and at the end I’ll tell you where to get the template file.
Microsoft is accelerating the transformation of its project management offerings with a significant evolution of Planner set to take place between late April and early September 2025. For organizations invested in Microsoft’s project management ecosystem, understanding these updates is crucial for a smooth transition and to take advantage of new capabilities.
In this article, I will look closer at each of the upcoming enhancements to Microsoft Planner, highlight key migration changes, and clarify which features will not carry over from Project for the web.
Microsoft recently improved Planner by adding new features to the baseline! You can read the official documentation here, but hey, why not stick around and read my opinion on the topic first? I’ll add the link again down below so you won’t even have to scroll back 😉.
Create an image for the baseline improving. Include a gantt chart and duration variance.
Sidetracked a bit, but does Dall-E know what a Gantt chart is? Let’s see: “Create an image of a gantt chart, include baseline and milestones as well as a critical path”
Guess not…
I asked it to improve, and the result is at the end of this post. Let’s get back to the topic at hand.
The baseline in Planner improved!
I’m very happy about this, and you might already be aware of the baseline articles on the blog. I’m a bit of a Baseline fan boy.
So, I was delighted when the topic came up while I was testing out a new GPT prompt. The prompt was tasked to help me draft new YouTube videos. I copied the URL of the last Planner blog article without looking and the result was a script about baselines!
Oh and… drum roll please… this is also available on named orgs! So your project accelerator (or Power PPM) is also updated.
I made a short video in case you don’t want to read a lot 😉
What happened?
Planner with premium features (available for users with a Planner Plan 1, 3 or 5 license) will now have 3 2 additional features added to the schedule baseline:
Additional variance fields in the project comparison side pane. Apart from the end date variance, we now also have start date, finish date, duration, and effort variances available.
A slight improvement on task level visibility. Granted, it isn’t a tracking Gantt, but on the grid view, we get the option to “compare” to a baseline. Which presents us with a couple of baseline columns only available through the baseline side pane compare button.
Added reporting capability. As I’ve shared in the previous baseline article, there was no visibility on Dataverse Baseline tables or columns. This has changed!
Closer inspection of my reporting quest turned out that there wasn’t an improvement on reporting.
Additional variance fields
The baseline comparison side pane is in a much better shape than we used to have. Now we get a full list of variances that we can use to analyse the status of our project:
Baseline details now has the main variances visible.
The best thing about this side pane is the clear distinction between things that are on track or behind. In the case where I’m doing better than the baseline I will also get a green indicator telling me the variance in a positive way.
I’m a bit surprised that none of these fields got a spot on the project information page. To me, it would make sense if we added at least the effort and finish date variances to the main project information pane.
Task level visibility
On the Baseline side pane there’s a new tab called the Spotlight. It contains 3 useful new values to use in your baseline vs current schedule comparison: Critical path variance, upcoming tasks, Overdue tasks. And there is a button available to compare all tasks.
The compare all tasks feature is the closest thing to a Tracking Gantt we currently have. Clicking on the button will add 3 new columns to your grid that are NOT available using the + Add column option.
Compare all tasks gives us the Baseline start, baseline finish and finish variance.
The visualisation on Finish variance is great. I’d hope they will also provide the other variances from the baseline details on the task level soon.
There’s a hide baseline button that let’s you remove the 3 columns again. But there is no show baseline button if you’ve clicked on it (meaning that you will first have to click on baseline and then on compare all tasks again).
Reporting capability
Last time we looked at the baseline for Planner premium (or Planner, with premium features or Project for the web) we didn’t have Power BI access to the baseline tables.
We still don’t:
What didn’t change?
Are we done? Do we have parity with MS Project or Project Online? No, there are still items on my wish list when it comes to good support for the Project Managers and the PMO.
The 3 biggest things on that list are:
A tracking Gantt. Because everyone loves a good visual.
Multiple baselines. Because you need to be able to track the delta between scope changes as well.
Baseline information on the task details page. Why don’t we have baseline start and finish on this side pane? Or on the main Project information tab?
Final notes
Here’s that link again to the official documentation. Thank you for sticking around. I’m happy with the improvements from Microsoft, it’s definitely a step in the right direction. It’s still not “there” yet though.
And I hope Microsoft keeps improving the solution until we have something closer to MS Project (and better) to show.
Microsoft Planner has a new feature! It’s capable of capturing a baseline. I covered the feature in a recent video on YouTube. It’s a feature available only for premium plans. And there’s more to the feature than meets the eye. Let’s dig in!
Prompting Copilot (with Dall-E3) “Create an image: Product feature marketing style. The product is Microsoft Planner. And the new feature we are showcasing is the baseline.”
Oh my, AI… Are you feeling alright? This image just looks horribly wrong. How is this a marketing style product feature image? And what is a Baselase🤷♂️?
I haven’t done a “about post” in ages! Here we go:
Recently Microsoft has provided us with a deluge of Copilots (company specific Generative AI models). And there is even one for our Planner tool as well. This Copilot is currently available from the Planner app in Microsoft Teams, and it’s in it’s first iteration. This means that the Copilot will likely increate capabilities in the future. For now, let’s take a close look at what the feature can do.
Just before Easter 2024 me and the family got the keys to our new house. And as mentioned back then in blogs and YouTube video’s, I’d be away for a while to settle in and do final adjustments to the house.
To be honnest, I’m still not behind a real desk but more at the kitchen table, and there are still things that need attention. But let’s dig in to some of the things I picked up at the European Power Platform Conference in Belgium and recent changes to Planner Premium (the “old” Project for the web).
More people start to embrace Project for the web, and that means there are more interesting questions coming in through all kinds of channels. I’ve received a question from someone that wanted to know if we can see all changes that have happened on a task within Project for the web. Including when the change has happened and what the change was.
And after some digging, I figured out how to do this! Read on to find out how you can activate audit tracking in Project for the web!