Microsoft Launches Planner App For Office 365 Suscribers

After launching a preview for select customers last September, Microsoft is now rolling out free access to Planner, its project management app, to
all users of its Office 365 productivity suite.

The tool lets you plan projects for your team, whether it’s for your business, school or non-profit organization. Once you’ve added collaborators, you can assign them tasks with due dates, share files and get a visual overview of everyone’s progress.

While Microsoft may be catching up to established services like Trello and Asana, the company’s ubiquity in the workplace make Planner an instant contender in this space. The app integrates with other Microsoft products like OneNote, OneDrive and Outlook, so it’ll be an obvious choice for those already committed to the Office 365 suite.

Planner is still in its early days, however. Unlike its rivals, it doesn’t have native mobile apps, and it also lacks things such as activity streams and @mentions.

Some of that should be coming down the road with Microsoft already working on apps for Android, iOS and Windows, as well as features like reusable plan templates, external user access to boards and the ability to assign a task to multiple users.