Microsoft Planner is Officially Here!

On Monday June 6th, Microsoft announced the general availability of their new Microsoft Planner product. Over the weeks ahead, Microsoft Planner will roll out to all eligible Office 365 customers throughout the world. Microsoft Planner will be available for all Office 365 Enterprise E1-E5, Business Essentials, Premium and Education subscription plans.
All users that have the stated office 365 subscriptions above, will automatically see the Microsoft Planner tile appear in the Office 365 app launcher when it is available. Office 365 admins won’t need to do or initiate anything to get Planner up and running.
This addition of Planner to the Office 365 lineup brings a new and improved way for organizations, businesses, and schools to structure their teamwork. With Microsoft Planner, teams will be able to create new plans; organize, assign and collaborate on tasks; update their statuses and share files, all while visual dashboards and email notifications keep everyone informed on their progress.
Since the Planner Preview rollout, Microsoft has been working closely with a variety of Office 365 customers all over the world. Many of these customers have already experienced quantifiable benefits from increased collaboration and time saved.

Microsoft Planner and Groups:

Planner makes use of Office 365 Groups, when you create a plan it creates a Group. The Group will then support the collaboration features by providing storage for attachments and also a mailbox for group discussions. Planner was designed to give you the best experience if you have e-mail in Office 365 (Exchange Online), but you can still use Planner if you have on-premises Exchange.
New Features coming to Microsoft Planner:
1. The ability to assign a task to multiple users.
2. External user access.
3. Plan templates.
4. Customizable boards and apps for iOS, Android and Windows.

Microsoft Planner Overview video:

Microsoft has stated that they are committed to reading all the feedback they receive and using it to continuously improve Planner.
If you are interested in giving Microsoft feedback on Planner, here is the Microsoft Planner – Feedback forum.
What can you see your organization using Microsoft Planner for? Let us know!