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Hello, it's Matt, and welcome to Collaboration Coach.
In this video we're going to have a look at how to assign tasks in Planner in the most effective way.
As well as assigning tasks, we'll look at how to make sure that people are notified that they have one,
and I'll give you some tips on how to find, open and manage the task and make sure that the work is done.
We'll also look at how you can use the Planner app on your phone
and Microsoft's To Do app with Planner to make tracking and closing down tasks that much easier,
and at the end I'll show you how we assign tasks in Planner to help us create the videos for this YouTube channel.
But before we start, if you like this video then please subscribe to the channel
and hit that bell icon so you get notified when we post new videos.
So first let's look at how we assign a task in Planner.
I'm here in my store upgrade plan,
and to assign a task I can just choose the ellipsis, and then "Assign".
Then I can type the name of the person that I want to complete the task.
When I pick them, their photo or initials appear alongside the task
so at a glance I can see who's doing the work.
I can also open the task by clicking on it and using the "assign" button at the top here.
You can assign multiple people to a task if there are people working together on it.
I'm going to assign this task to Megan and Pradeep.
If the tasks can be split into subtasks I recommend that you use a checklist.
Checklists are a very handy way of dividing up the task into smaller parts.
It could be that you want different people to complete different parts of the checklist.
Unfortunately there's no way to assign parts of the checklist to individuals,
so one way to work around that is just to write the name of the person in the actual checklist item.
So here for example, I'll add Megan's name to this checklist item and Pradeep's name to this one,
so as they do the work they can complete each checklist item.
So once you've assigned your tasks,
you need to make sure that the assignees get notified that they have work to do.
So now we're going to look at how people can check what tasks they have
and how notifications work in Planner.
The most obvious way to check what tasks you've been assigned...
...is to use the "My Tasks" section in the Planner app.
You can do that by opening Planner in the browser
and choosing "My Tasks".
Here you'll see all the tasks you have across all the plans that you have tasks in.
You can see here in my task that I have tasks from the Store Upgrade plan,
and also the Product Launch Event...
...and Mark 8 Project Plan.
And I can open up my tasks from here and I can complete the tasks on the checklists as I do them.
In this task, "Set up meeting", you can see that I have a checklist of items,
and I can do them, mark them as complete and that shows the plan owner that progress is being made.
It might be a stretch to assume that everyone will be checking Planner all day every day.
So there are some options to push notifications to different apps.
One example is email.
Planner can automatically notify your team by email when you assign them a task.
Here in Outlook, I have an email that tells me I've been assigned a task by Megan
and there's a link to open the task in Planner.
I can press the button here and it will take you straight to the task.
Going back to Outlook, you can also get email notifications when tasks are upcoming or late.
In this email I've got tasks that are late and I can click on the links and open Planner and review the task.
One tip here that's useful is to move the Planner notifications between the focused and other inboxes.
If you want to move Planner emails to focus so they get more of your attention
you can right click any of the Planner email and then choose "always move to focus".
I can also reverse that if I want to,
and move the Planner emails to the other part of my inbox so they get less attention.
I just right click and choose "move to other".
If you don't want to receive these emails at all, you can switch them off completely.
Go to the Planner app and choose the settings wheel in the top right corner
and then choose "Notifications".
The first checkbox here will turn off all push notifications to email and the mobile app,
and then the second will block emails telling you that tasks are upcoming, due or late.
The Planner app is an alternative to using the browser.
It's available for ios and android and there is a phone and tablet version.
Just like in the browser app, the mobile app has a "My Task" section.
There you can view your tasks across all the plans that you're a member of, grouped by progress
and you can change the grouping to other things like "plan" or "priority".
You can also open tasks and view their checklists
and then close down any list items and complete the task.
You can get notifications on your phone like banners when tasks are assigned,
and notifications can be managed just like any other app
so you can turn them on and off as you prefer.
You can use the app in combination with email too.
For example, when you see a Planner email with a link in it like this one,
you can press the button and it will open up the Planner app automatically and take you to the task.
You may be familiar with the Microsoft To Do app, and this can also be used to manage Planner tasks.
The To Do app can be used in the browser and there's a version for windows, mac and ios and android.
In To Do you'll see there is a list called "Assigned to you".
This is where any tasks you've been assigned in Planner will appear.
If you don't see the "Assigned to you" list in the To-do app,
just go to the settings and make sure that Planner is toggled on in the connected app section.
In the "Assigned to you" list you'll see all your Planner tasks.
You can see at a glance which ones have due dates.
For example, this one is due today.
And you can also see which ones have steps,
so when I open up this one, the steps are listed
and I can complete any of them without actually closing down the tasks,
just like I can in Planner.
I can add a due date here if i want to
and there's a link to open the task in Planner as well.
If I want to close any of the tasks, I can just use the button on the left hand side of the task here
and I can also make a task important by pressing the star to the right,
and this will add it to the important list in To Do.
At Collaboration Coach we use Planner to create our videos for this channel.
We create tasks in Planner and then assign them to people working on each video.
There's always two people working on a video.
One writes and records and then the other edits and publishes.
What I normally do is add the task to Planner with the checklist of steps using Planner in the browser.
I then assign the task to me because I'm usually the one writing and recording the video.
Normally we have lots of these videos in Planner ready to be assigned
and we often have a few different videos in production at different stages,
so Planner is essential to keep track of the progress.
Each day I check the "Assigned to you" list in To-do on my phone,
then I add the tasks that I'm going to do that day to the "My day" list.
I do the work and then I complete the first three steps on the checklist,
then I assign the task to the editor,
and they will see the task in their To-do.
They complete the last of the checklist items
and then they close the task and the video is complete.
Okay guys so that's your overview of assigning tasks with Planner,
and making sure that people are notified when they have work to do.
I hope that's useful, and if you like this video then please subscribe to the channel.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
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