Master Microsoft Teams for effective Project Management

[@GinaBetcher]

Perfect and what I needed one month ago. Now I know.

[@Spp235.]

The one thing I wish you would discuss is the difference in use between Planner and Lists. Do you use lists simply to track items without assigning anyone to work on them? (Which seems to be what To Do and Planner is for)

[@your365coach]

Great Idea, I'm going to get a video out on this and i'll let you know when it's published 😀

[@cybermonkey7738]

Absolutely agree!

[@your365coach]

There's a new video now on the channel, and I hope it helps answer that question for you 😀

[@cchopin]

Hello Scott! I was wondering how you've been able to create a planner from the channel 'Planning' as Teams let us do it only from the 'General' channel? Which forces us to create a single planner for each Team, rather than one for each channel. If you've found a way to bypass that constraint, I'll be glad to hear it. Best, Christophe

[@maxwellnorris2321]

Hello @Scot Brant - Do you know a way how we can assign tasks to a Position Title rather than an individual?.. I work on a mine site on a Fly-In/Fly-Out roster in which all positions are Back-to-Back, the issue I find is that when you assign actions or tasks to a specific person, his/her back-to-back tends not to progress the counterparts outstanding actions/tasks Any tips please?

[@nasirazizkhan9202]

Thanks, @Scott Brant, for the informative video, I have one question: How can we manage stakeholder management via Microsoft Teams

[@your365coach]

That's possibly something for another video, as I would guess that whilst your Stakeholders could exist in your Team and therefore get updates from it, and equally there's project chat that you would not want to share with your Stakeholders, such as possibly a post stating things are running behind or over budget - you can then imagine one of your stakeholders reading that, without any context and then wanting an urgent review with you as the Project Manager - not an ideal situation. Therefore I would start to consider a shared channel for that type of thing, where your stakeholder messaging and files are separate to the wider Team conversations - but that is purely an idea at the moment. You could also even consider a separate Team entirely for the Stakeholders to access shared resources and conversations - removing them from the project chatter that's going on.

[@jakedworkis]

Hey Scott, is there a way to live chat with the team members you've added to your channel, or do you need to create a separate "Chat" with that group of people? Easy enough to do for a team of 10, but i'd imagine harder to do for a team of 1,000. Appreciate your direction here!

[@your365coach]

Interesting question 😀... I'd probably head into Microsoft Teams Chat, then open a new blank Chat Message. In the 'To' field at the to[p, you can then input the Team / Group Name and select that. Upon selecting it, it then extracts all the members in the Team / Group and you start a live Group Chat with them, outside of the Team itself. However, this approach extracts the members of the Group / Team when you first add it, so you will sadly need to add / remove members as they come and go from your team, within your Group Chat as that is not Synchronised. Of course, you could also have a Channel Meeting - but that's not really chat based and are a bit annoying 😀 Hope that helps?

[@lsaccountingfirm5494]

Hi! This video is very helpful however, my Microsoft Teams does not have Teams, Apps or Files on the side tab. I only have a Activity, Chat and Calendar. Do you know how to change this?

[@your365coach]

It sounds like you may be running Teams Personal / Home which is installed on Windows for home use. To use the business version, the best way is to ensure you are running the Microsoft 365 Work / School version which will require you to sign in with a Microsoft 365 Business Account and gives you the capabilities in this video tutorial. You can download that version via the link below, and then sign in with your work account. If you continue to experience problems, then of course Microsoft Support may be able to help further too 😀 www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-teams/download-app

[@youpeteraaron]

👏👏👏👏

[@carolegallegos7691]

Is there a specific setting to add todo to channels in a team? I can only add it to General

[@scouseness]

Nice one Scott

[@your365coach]

Thanks 👍 😃

[@TaherAfridi]

This is great!

[@your365coach]

Thanks for the feedback 😊

[@SteveSpoharski]

I am not seeing Task show up as an option on a private channel, It does show up on the general tab. Has somethin changed?

[@your365coach]

Sadly, I don’t believe that Tasks (Planner) is supported on a Private Teams Channel and they are only available through a Standard Teams Channel 😢

[@sabihanaaz2312]

How do we add alerts to the planner so that there are no missed deadlines?

[@your365coach]

There is the automated capability to do this in Planner but I’ll do a tutorial in the future to show how to do this in Power Automate and have the emails come from you, so you don’t need to chase them up yourself 😄

[@kathyvilla5380]

Could you please help me?, I would like to have access to My boss Planner so I can help him with the task, the idea is that I select assign to me and can see all the tasks but I do not have to do it, Do you?

[@your365coach]

So, you would need access to your bosses plan as a member if it’s in Planner. Then you can be assigned Tasks in the Plan or jointly have assignment with your boss on Tasks. You can then filter the Tasks for where they are assigned to you. Hope that helps 😃

[@AdrianJackson-u9p]

Are you able to make specfic tasks private for specific individuals?

[@your365coach]

Sadly in Microsoft Planner, that's not possible, as anyone who has access to the Plan can equally see the Tasks. If you created a Microsoft List for Task Management, that is possible, but requires customisation of permissions which is a difficult one to tackle if your new to Teams and SharePoint 🙁

[@VickieBell-w8i]

Don't forget to tell people that the Task app costs $2 a month. I am using Teams in a university environment, which has uploaded "New Teams," as of March 11, 2024

[@cybermonkey7738]

Great, but this is a very laborious setup. There are way too many places to go and this can exhaust project teams. Asana and Jira are much better overall. I would only do this as a last resort.

[@Spp235.]

He is only showing one-time set up which has massive options. To use efficiently after set-up, there are other ways to find and add info on a consolidated basis across teams for task, files, updates etc. I don’t agree that this is too difficult to use afterwards for project team members

[@cybermonkeyusa]

@@Spp235. It is a chore to set this up when you have tools like Jira or Asana, both of which work with Teams. The weakness is that Teams does not allow for dependencies and to get there would require MS Project, Jira or Asana like products. Managing projects this way takes a lot of time away from actually doing the project. Most have ditched the “Teams/Slack” because it is yet another tool to chase. Asana and Jira keep communications and files in the project. As a ScrumMaster, these tools keep the project moving forward and in one place.

[@cybermonkey7738]

That's fair, but there are easier more efficient options. Even just adding MS Project Online take a lot out of this setup. In managing high impact projects, Jira or Asana can give you the collaboration in one project tool vs. having yet another thing to check. Having worked with Microsoft very closely over the years, I love the potential in the products. @@Spp235.