Continuing our video series offering IT tips on popular questions, we look at Microsoft Tasks – how you install it, use it – and the benefits to team productivity …

The idea behind Microsoft Tasks, one of the newest apps for Microsoft Teams, is that it works with the rest of MS 365. This means you can bring content together in one place for collaboration with others.

IT tips: How do I use the new Tasks app?

To remove some of the confusion over Planner and Tasks, we’ve put together a short video to explain how to set Tasks up and how to use it. We hope you find it helpful …

Tasks is similar to Planner but bear with it – it’s better!

It’s slightly confusing currently because this is being rolled out as the new Tasks experience but is similar to Planner in Teams desktop. And, for now, some people will still see the app name as Planner – so you may need to access the Tasks app from the Planner icon in Teams. This is being addressed by MS (in the meantime, we can help you with this – see our video above).

The good news, however, is that Tasks will enable you and your team to work more efficiently because it builds upon – and brings together – your personal and individual tasks from ‘To Do’ and Outlook with your team Tasks from Planner.

The Tasks app has two main parts:

1. My Tasks – the lists from your ‘To Do’ app and tasks you’ve added in ‘To Do’ and Outlook.
2. Shared Plans, which include Planner plans that have been added to Teams.

Other useful features include:

• List view, which displays tasks and information associated with them in rows and columns. This enables you to change many tasks at once and you can filter your tasks.

• Like with Planner, you can add a plan to a Microsoft Teams Channel. Then you’ll be able to view your plan in the context of the rest of your team conversations, files etc.

And there is more to come in Tasks in the future

• To read more about Microsoft Task and the plans for integration of Tasks across the office 365 suite, please read this article.

As providers of IT Support in Surrey, London and the South East generally, we’d be happy to help if you’d like to discuss this or other issues with us.

Please contact us on the form below. Thanks!