Planner’s new Baseline features

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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 finish, start, duration and effort variances are now available from the sidepane.
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.

The view of the new Baseline feature compare all tasks. The image shows a table with 3 additional columns and the spotlight call out.
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:

  1. A tracking Gantt. Because everyone loves a good visual.
  2. Multiple baselines. Because you need to be able to track the delta between scope changes as well.
  3. 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.

If you like my article, you might also like the feature release video’s I do on my YouTube channel. And my bi-monthly newsletter is coming up again soon.

This was my last attempt to get a decent Gantt chart out of ChatGPT btw:

Here is the revised Gantt chart image with a more realistic and professional design, including baselines, milestones, and the critical path.

Well well ChatGPT, I think I’m not out of a job just yet…

About Copilot (Preview) in Planner

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.

AI Generated image for Copilot and Microsoft Planner.
Prompt in ChatGPT 4o: “Copilot and Microsoft Planner”
Continue reading About Copilot (Preview) in Planner

Activate audit tracking in 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!

Continue reading Activate audit tracking in Project for the web

The difference between Project for the web, Project Web App, Project Online and Project server

There are a number of “project” applications in the Microsoft landscape. The ones in the title aren’t even all there is. So, when I got this question from one of my readers I was interested to help out:

I need an article to remove my confusion about the difference between Project for the web, Project web app, Project Online and Project server

Varun Kumar Gupta, through my questionnaire

Let’s tackle this beast as my first article of 2023!

Continue reading The difference between Project for the web, Project Web App, Project Online and Project server

Video 100! Everything you need to know about Project for the web

It’s been a journey, but I’ve made it! Just like Post #100, I will celebrate video #100 with a blogpost of it’s own. On the 14th of December (2022) I published my 100th video on YouTube! You can view it here or jump over to YouTube and view it there of course 😁.

Video 100! on how to (use) Project for the web
Continue reading Video 100! Everything you need to know about Project for the web

Project for the web Feedback portal update July 2022

I’ve skipped over May and June, it has been a very busy time for me. And I didn’t want to rush any new post just for the sake of consistency.

Welcome to a special update post, today I want to zoom in on a specific Project for the web feature request. This request came in through one of the newsletter subscribers, Jared Kay (who makes lovely handmade American furniture). But first, let’s look at the progress of the other requests on the feedback portal.

Continue reading Project for the web Feedback portal update July 2022

Project for the web Feedback portal update April 2022

New features come in monthly. And for Project for the web there’s a Feedback portal that we can use to let Microsoft know what to build next. This is the fourth post in the series regarding the Feedback portal. And if you have been following along you might already know what’s coming. Previous posts can be found here, here and here.

For all the rest of you, I’ll look at previously discussed feature requests. And I’ll pick a new one and discuss the feature. If it’s a cool feature you might want to vote for it, it helps Microsoft focus on creating the features we want in the tool.

Continue reading Project for the web Feedback portal update April 2022