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👋 Farewell: Microsoft Planner Features and Welcome New Features and Changes (Coming in Early 2026)

Published 4 months ago • 3 min read

How's it going Reader,

"Starting mid-January 2026, I'll finally be able to @mention specific teammates in task discussions and use bold and italics to emphasize important points - no more sending generic comments that notify everyone on the team unnecessarily. At first I was nervous about the change, but once I saw how the new task chat works just like Teams messaging, I realized this is going to save me so much time and reduce notification fatigue for my colleagues. Right now, every comment I add notifies all 15 people on our project plan, even when I only need input from one person."

What's Changing

Between mid-January 2026 and mid-February 2026, Microsoft Planner will receive a major upgrade that replaces the old comments system with a modern task chat experience featuring @mentions and rich text formatting. Several features including the whiteboard tab for premium plans, iCalendar feeds, and Planner components in Loop pages will be retired, while the ability to convert basic plans to premium plans will be temporarily unavailable.

Who It's Changing For

Primary audience: Active Planner users (basic and premium plans)

  • Impact: High - Your daily workflow will change, especially for task collaboration
  • How they'll feel: Mixed emotions - excited about new features but anxious about learning new processes and losing familiar tools

Secondary audience: Loop users with Planner components

  • Impact: Medium - Will need to switch to Task List Control in Loop
  • How they'll feel: Frustrated about having to migrate existing components

Premium plan users with whiteboards:

  • Impact: High - Losing integration between Planner and Whiteboard
  • How they'll feel: Disappointed about losing a convenient workflow

IT Teams/Administrators:

  • Impact: Medium - Need to communicate changes and support users through transition
  • How they'll feel: Concerned about support requests and ensuring smooth transition

Why It's Changing

Microsoft is modernizing Planner to match how teams actually work today. The old comments system was basic and outdated - it couldn't handle rich text, didn't let you target specific people with @mentions, and sent notifications to everyone on the plan regardless of relevance. The new task chat experience responds to customer feedback by giving you modern messaging capabilities with formatted text and targeted notifications, so only the people you @mention get alerted. This reduces notification fatigue while improving how teams collaborate on specific tasks.

When It's Changing

The rollout follows Microsoft's standard deployment timeline:

  • Mid-January 2026 to mid-February 2026: New Planner update begins rolling out
  • Mid-January 2026 to mid-February 2026: Feature retirements take effect as the update reaches your organization
  • December 31, 2025: Viva Goals retirement (affecting Planner integration)

Important note: Changes happen automatically when the update reaches your tenant - no admin action required, but no ability to delay either.

What's in It for You

New capabilities you're gaining:

  1. Better task conversations: Use rich text formatting, bold, italics, and @mentions in task chats instead of plain text comments
  2. Smarter notifications: Only people you @mention get notified, ending the notification overload problem
  3. Custom templates: Create reusable plan templates tailored to your team's workflows, saving setup time for recurring projects
  4. AI assistance everywhere: Project manager agent now available in basic plans for Copilot licensed users, not just premium plans
  5. Modern collaboration: Task chats integrate better with Teams and Outlook for a seamless experience

What you need to know about retired features:

  • Old task comments: Still viewable through a link to Outlook, and still fully functional in mobile apps (iOS, Android, Teams mobile)
  • Whiteboard tab for premium plans: Existing whiteboard content stays safe in the Whiteboard app, just no longer integrated in Planner
  • iCalendar feeds: Consider using Outlook's built-in task integration instead
  • Planner in Loop: Switch to the Task List Control - it's designed specifically for Loop and works better
  • Converting basic to premium plans: Temporarily unavailable, but coming back - create new premium plans in the meantime

What You Can Do to Prepare

  1. Save important task comments: If you have critical information in task comments, consider copying it to task descriptions or OneNote before the rollout
  2. Familiarize your team: When the update arrives, explore the new task chat feature - it works like Teams chat
  3. Export whiteboard content: If using premium plan whiteboards, ensure content is saved in the Whiteboard app
  4. Update Loop pages: Start transitioning Planner components to Task List Controls
  5. Remove iCalendar subscriptions: Clean up any iCalendar feeds you're no longer using

Remember: change succeeds when people understand not just what they must do differently, but why doing it differently serves them better.

Go well and feel free to let me know your thoughts.

Anthony

ps - If you think of someone you know would benefit from joining our community, please care and share, they can sign up here and get them delivered directly to their inbox with early access.

Source: Message Centre - Message ID: MC1193421 | Published Date: 09 December 2025 | Services: Viva Engage

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