Setting the Stage
As I’ve continued my research into digital collaboration tools, especially those that could help me in my current role as an Instructional Designer, I found that many tools did a good job overall with what I call the setting for the project - literally the where for hosting the project. This idea of the where for the project, the ease of where we house it, came to mind as I explored Microsoft Planner.
My current employer uses a lot of Microsoft projects so being able to track our projects in a Microsoft tool seems like the perfect setting.
One article I came across by Niall Lenihan, an Account Manager for Project Central, noted quite a few of the pros of utilizing Microsoft Planner as well as other Microsoft tools to set the stage for your project. He notes that Planner:
“Allows teams to create detailed tasks with owners, color-coded labels, file attachments, checklists, and comments”
While also noting that Planner
“Offers little reporting, especially across projects, and all users must have a Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Business Essentials, or Enterprise account to view project plans” (Lenihan, 2022).
So while Planner can be a useful setting if your organization has those premium Microsoft 365 accounts, because you already have your work materials stored in other Microsoft utilities, it can be limiting if you want to work with those outside of your organization. My team also discovered that our set up for Planner did not allow for our team to have our own “board” (stage) which means we would not have as much functionality as we’d life since our projects would be sub pages of the larger organization.
This particular article is by an account manager for Project Central which is a tool to build on to Planner so the article is not without some bias. That being said, the information does correlate to what I found in my own experience exploring Planner for my team. And Project Central itself as a tool has a 4.9 rating from 13 verified users via the “Get App” review website (GetApp, n.d.).
While some of my team is testing out Planner on their individual projects, we have not made the move to use it for the whole department although we do all use Microsoft Sharepoint, Outlook, and Teams extensively like smaller sets that are part of a traveling show that adapts to each new stage venue while looking for a more permanent performance space.
References
Lenihan, N. (2022, January 6). 7 microsoft 365 tools for project tracking. Project Central. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://www.projectcentral.com/blog/which-office-365-tools-are-best-to-track-projects/
Project central reviews—Pros & cons, ratings & more. (n.d.). GetApp. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://www.getapp.com/project-management-planning-software/a/project-central/reviews/
