Planner - All Key Changes (May 2026)
What is this article about?
what has changed
what has been removed
how you work differently now
1. New design โ cleaner & clearer
โ fewer visual elements
โ clearer structure
โ better navigation
โ faster orientation
2. Features โ now centralized and easier to access
With the new Planner, important features are easier to reach.
New or now more visible in the plan:
- Duplicate plan (directly in the menu) โ easier to reuse
- Export to Excel โ directly accessible without detours
- Plan details โ faster access and background customization
- Delete plan โ now directly visible in the menu
๐ What this means for you:
Important administrative functions are now centrally bundled and quicker to access.
โ ๏ธ Be careful when deleting tasks or plans!
The action looks harmless โ but has permanent effects.
โ Deleted plans and tasks cannot be restored
โ Not even via other ways in Planner
3. The biggest change: Chat instead of comments
โ Each task now has its own chat
โ @mentions (address people directly)
โ Formatting (bold, lists, links)
โ Emojis & reactions
โ Edit or delete your own messages
- Discussions now take place directly within the task โ exactly where the work happens.
- Old comments are not transferred into the chat.
- They still exist, but are no longer directly visible within the task.
4. Goals
New in Planner (with Planner Premium or Copilot license):
โ
Tasks can be assigned to goals
โ
better alignment with shared objectives
๐ Teams can see faster:
- what they are working on
- what has priority
๐ Important:
The goals feature is only fully available with a Planner Premium or Copilot license.
5. More focus on Copilot & automation
Microsoft is continuing to develop Planner toward AI support:
โ
Integration of AI (Copilot / Planner Agent)
โ
Support for planning and structuring tasks
๐ Goal:
- less manual planning
- faster creation of tasks and plans
- more support through AI
6. What has been removed?
โ old comment function
โ iCalendar feed (no more automatic calendar synchronization)
โ Whiteboard tab (in Premium)
7. Current limitations (transition phase)
๐ Important for practice:
The chat is not yet available everywhere
Mobile apps in particular may still have limitations
๐ Tip:
If you donโt see new features yet, it is usually due to the gradual rollout โ just check again later.
๐งญ Practical tip:
Check the Planner app in Teams on the left side โ for some users, this triggered the new UI to load.
You can add the Planner app in Teams on the left as an app.
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