Microsoft Planner to Retire Key Features Early 2026; New Ones to Take Over

Microsoft is planning to retire several Microsoft Planner features in early 2026 as part of a major Planner update. According to a LinkedIn post by Brian Smith, who previously worked on Microsoft Planner and Project, these retirements are expected to occur between mid-January and mid-February 2026.

Do note that all these changes will affect all users of Microsoft Planner, including those using Planner components in Loop, integrations with Viva Goals, and premium plans. The changes will happen automatically by the specified dates, and no admin action is required.

Features Retiring Within Planner Starting 2026

Prior Task Comments (Replaced by New Chat Experience)

The prior task comments experience for basic plan tasks will be retired. This will be replaced by a new Task chat experience.

Key details about this replacement include:

• The new chat supports rich text formatting and user mentions (@mentions) in response to a long-standing customer request.
• Regarding notifications, the new chat feature only sends an email or Teams notification to the colleague who is @mentioned in the message.
• Email notifications for existing task comments will cease; an email notification will now only be sent to group members when a plan is initially added.
• The task details pane will no longer directly display comments; instead, it will display a link that opens a page in Outlook where task comments can be reviewed.
• The new task chat will be available in Planner on the Teams desktop/web, the web experience, and the Planner web experience.
• Users on mobile platforms (iOS/Android Planner app, Planner in Teams mobile) will temporarily continue to use the previous task comments experience, as new task chat messages will not be visible on mobile at this time.
• There is no change to the premium plan conversations feature.

Whiteboard Tab for Premium Plans (No Replacement)

The whiteboard tab for premium plans will be retired. This feature automatically created a whiteboard and allowed users to create tasks in Planner from that whiteboard’s sticky notes.

• After retirement, the whiteboard tab will be unavailable on the premium plan, and users will be unable to create tasks from a whiteboard.
• All existing whiteboard content will remain accessible via the standalone Whiteboard app.
• There is no replacement for this feature at this time.
  Convert Basic Plan to Premium Plan (Temporarily Unavailable)
  The ability to convert an existing basic plan to a premium plan will be temporarily unavailable.
• Microsoft plans to make similar functionality available again in the future.
• In the meantime, users needing this functionality must manually create a new premium plan and copy the tasks into it.

Features Outside of Planner Retiring Without Replacement

The following integrations and components will be retired, mostly between mid-January 2026 and mid-February 2026, and have no replacement:

• Planner integration in Viva Goals: This integration will retire earlier, on December 31, 2025. Once Viva Goals is retired, the entry point for using Planner within Viva Goals will no longer be available.
• iCalendar feed integration: This feature allowed users to create and subscribe to an iCalendar feed of their Planner tasks, viewable in calendar-compatible applications like Outlook. After retirement, users will be unable to create new iCalendar feeds for their tasks or plans and will stop seeing any previously created feeds. There is no replacement for this feature.
• Planner component in Loop pages: This component, which was previously inserted by typing /Planner in a Loop workspace, will be retired. The recommended alternative for capturing tasks is the Task List Control. After retirement, it will no longer be possible to add a new component of this type in a Loop workspace. Workspaces where these components were already present will instead display the Planner plan URL where the component was previously located. Moreover, Tasks previously entered in these components will remain available in Planner.

If you are curious to learn more, Microsoft has detailed everything in Microsoft Admin Center under ID MC199342; you can always check it.