Planner: boards, views and tasks

Your studio's tasks: boards, views, tags, priorities, due dates.

No integration to connect. Planner works from the moment the organisation is created, and it is usually the first screen a team opens.


Boards

Planner. A board groups a body of work: a sprint, a workstream, an app.

On creation, a Kanban view is generated automatically - an empty board with no view would be useless.

ActionEffect
DuplicateCopies the board and its views
Set as defaultThis board opens when you land on Planner
DeleteRemoves the board and its views. The tasks are not deleted

That last point is worth reading twice: a board is a way of looking at tasks, not a container. Deleting it destroys nothing.


Views

The same board is looked at in three ways, and a board can carry several views in parallel.

ViewGood for
KanbanThe workflow, column by column
ListQuick scanning, sorting, dense reading
CalendarDue dates, load over time

Every view carries its own configuration:

  • Group by - status, priority, assignee, tag
  • Filter by - status, priority, assignee, tag, project
  • Show on the card - the fields visible without opening the task

Two views of the same board can therefore show very different things: a Kanban grouped by status for the morning stand-up, a list filtered on "urgent" for the review.


Tasks

A task carries:

FieldValues
StatusTo do, In progress, In review, Done, Cancelled
PriorityUrgent, High, Medium, Low
AssigneeA member of the organisation
ProjectOne of the studio's apps, or none
Due dateA date
TagsAs many as needed

It also carries a formatted description, comments, attachments and sub-tasks.

The Project field is what ties team work to the apps: filtering on a project gives everything in progress on that app, across all boards.

Deletion

Deleting a task sets it aside; it can be restored from the deleted tickets. Only a draft being written is lost for good, and the interface says so beforehand.


Tags

Planner → Settings → Tags.

Tags are organised into sets, each set configured as single choice or multiple choice.

This is the part people usually get wrong. A "Area" set in single choice (iOS, Android, API, Design) forces a decision, and makes grouping readable. A "Context" set in multiple choice accepts several labels. Putting everything into one bag of free tags gives you, after a month, an unmanageable list.

Deleting a tag removes it from every task that carried it. Permanent.


Tutorial - starting a sprint board

  1. Planner → New board, name it "Current sprint".
  2. Set it as default: it is the one the team should see on arrival.
  3. On the generated Kanban view, group by status.
  4. Add a second List view, filtered on Urgent priority: Monday's review happens on it.
  5. Create an "Area" tag set in single choice, with one entry per part of the product.
  6. Create the tasks, assign them, set the due dates. The Calendar view then shows whether the week is feasible.

Coming

Sprints (planning, team velocity) are announced in the product but not shipped yet.


Next

  • Documents - the other team tool, for what does not get ticked off
  • Products - the rest of the catalogue