We recently published an article that compared Microsoft Planner with To Do and Project, but since then, Microsoft’s come out with two more tools for Microsoft Teams. The latest are known as Milestones and Bulletins.

These two tools are built on both the Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse for Teams, which means they can integrate within Teams directly, to help you collaborate and focus on group projects. So, here’s a look at both tools, and what they can help you accomplish if you’re hoping to get started with them.

Introduction to the Milestones App

First off, we’re starting with the Milestones app in Teams. This app is all about tracking tasks and keeping you updated on tasks such as system rollouts, training, research, applications, feedback, and more. The app also has a 360-degree view, which lets you see the overall project that you’re working on. Other features of the Milestones app can be seen below.

• Managers can easily set up projects, and work items.
• Assign work items to employees.
• Classify work items by milestones.
• Configure work item categories, priorities, and status options.

According to Microsoft, what’s special about Milestones is the extensibility of it. You can update labels, add fields, business process flows, and a lot more. There’s currently a sample app that you can use, via the link in our title above. It’s free to add to Teams, but it in preview.

Hands-on with Milestones App

Once you install Milestones in Teams, then set it up and launch it, you’ll be thrown into a quick and easy to understand interface. You’ll see a search box on the top left letting you search for projects. You can also create a new project with the New Project Button. Then, under that. you’ll see project lists. If you’re hoping to customize Milestones more, you also can click the customize button, too. Just be aware this will open up Power Apps Studio, outside of Teams.

In the middle of your screen, meanwhile, you’ll see Milestone Status icons. Here, you’ll see color-coded counts of the work items added for each team member. Next to that will be a toggle button to switch between a summary view and a more in-depth view. Keep in mind that you’ll also see a Project work items box under this, which will let you create, read, update, and delete work items associated with the project.

Finally, to the most right-hand side of the screen, you’ll see a couple of things. Up top will be three buttons. These buttons (left to right) are for selecting a theme, showing information about the app, and changing app settings (reserved or managers only.)  Under that, will be some buttons for adding activities to the log such as status updates.

With those basics understood, you can create a new Project. It’s as simple as clicking the New Project button, and then entering in a name, and adding some milestone moments (or themes) such as Orientation, Training, or Mentor, as well as the due dates. You can change the color for milestones by clicking the tile icon. These colors will show up in the main view, later on. After that, from there, you can select to add team members to the project, and then press the create button.

If you’d like you can select a theme by clicking the photo icon on the top rail, next to the information button. It’s also required to add work items, too. You can do this by selecting a project, and then choosing new work item. From there, you can add things such as Name, Description, values for Assigned to, Milestone, Status, Category, Priority, and Target date. Be sure to add a theme or category, as well.

From here onwards, the project can be tracked, and you can make changes as you see fit. When an item is done, you can check it off in the Tracking section. You can always add new tracking items to show progress on a milestone, and you can add to the activity log as you go for managers to see your progress.

Introductions to the Bulletins app

While Milestones is all about task tracking, Bulletins for Microsoft Teams is more of an app that’s designed around company communication. It is designed to be a space where you can read memos, announcements, and other company news. You can even create and categorize bulletin news, search for posts, and bookmark them for later. Keep in mind there are two experiences for Bulletins.

There’s Manage Bulletins, which is the manager experience for Bulletins, and then there’s the Bulletins app. With manage bulletins, managers can create, edit, and publish posts for all to see. This includes Links, contacts, news bulletins, and more. The Bulletins app, meanwhile, is for everyone else to use, where they can see the stuff managers have posted.

Hands-on with the Bulletins and Manage Bulletins app

As we said before, there are two experiences for Bulletins. If you’re a manager with admin privileges, then you’re going to deal with manage bulletins. Here, you can add a new bulletin by clicking the New Bulletin button on the far-left of the screen.

Note that to get here, you’ll need to toggle into the Manage Bulletins app from the top bar in Teams. Anyway, from here, you also can see all created bulletins with the bulletin tab on the top left and then create FAQs with the FAQs tab, and then categorized links and contacts, too.

Creating a bulletin is straight forward. Just click the button and fill out the form. Be sure to choose a category, or if you want to make it appear as a featured post with the make it featured button. You also can schedule it for later. Add a video or cover image if you want, and then add a title or subtitles. You also can add a button to link to a website, and enter the URL. When ready to post, click Save, and then toggle ready for preview. You can preview the post, and then post it with publish.

You also can create a FAQ or Link and Contact in the same way, just choose FAQ or Links and Contacts, and fill out the form. You also can view statistics for your posts. You’ll see statistics about the number of views and bookmarks for the bulletin. You can also change the filter to show the statistics of the last 7 days, 30 days, or 6 months.

Finally, there’s the regular Bulletins experience, from the main Bulletins app. From here, you’ll see the main dashboard. Featured bulletins will show up in the middle of your screen, and other categories will show under featured posts. On the top eight, you can search for bulletins, and filter. Then, from the top left, you can toggle between your home feed, FAQs, as well as links and contacts. Just click a post to view it!

Keep in mind that both Bulletins and Milestones are Preview features. While you’re free to use it, these aren’t meant for production use and may have restricted functionality. Microsoft notes that, “these features are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.”

The power of Teams and Power Apps!

Both Bulletins and Milestones are built on Teams and Power Apps, so it means that both are fully customizable. You can customize the apps to meet the needs of your own business if it ever comes to that. Let us know what you think in the comments below, and check out our other Microsoft 365 guides right here.

In the Microsoft world, there’s a lot of different programs or apps you can use to manage your project for your small business. As part of your Microsoft 365 subscription, you might have heard of Microsoft Planner, but you also might have heard of Microsoft To Do as well, especially with the recent rebrand of the “Tasks” app in Teams.

And, if you’re looking for a more extensive solution, there’s Microsoft Project, too. So, which tool is right for you?  And how are these three Microsoft tools different from each other? What if you’re doing a solo or a team project? Are you depending on anyone?

Each of these tools can answer those questions, and today, we’ll explain the differences between each tool, and which one you might want to consider using.

Microsoft Project & Project Online

To begin, we’ll start Project Online and Microsoft Project. Project Online is a web-based experience and a paid add-on for Microsoft 365 plans. It’s designed for medium and large businesses primarily for creating schedules, tracking projects, portfolios, and creating timesheets. Microsoft Project (the desktop app) is more about creating a standalone project plan, and organizing works into phases.

This project management tool is one of the most extensive from Microsoft and is best if you’re a larger operation, looking for a more concise solution with a broader focus. Some features can be seen below.

• Starting in a centralized view, create new projects easily, quickly access important, top-of-mind projects, or open projects most recently worked on.
• Plan and manage projects, using an ordered list of tasks.
• Visually track project tasks for better workflow and status, using out-of-box and custom task boards.
• Track and understand dates, assignments and the relationships of project tasks in visual timeline view
• Work together on projects, using Microsoft Teams.
• Work together with stakeholders and team members to edit and update task lists, project schedules, and more simultaneously.
• Includes familiar scheduling tools to assign project tasks to team members and use different views like Grid, Board, and Timeline (Gantt chart) to oversee the schedule

Microsoft Project Online is priced at $10 per user per month. However, you also can opt for Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5. These are $30 a user per month, or $44 a user per month. These plans come with a desktop client. They come with the benefit of building roadmaps, timesheets, managing resources. Note that the top-end plan also has access to portfolio selection and optimization, demand management.

Microsoft Planner

Next, there’s Microsoft Planner. Unlike Microsoft Project, Planner is included as part of Microsoft 365 for no extra cost, and it’s a lot simpler to learn to use. That said, it is designed for smaller operations and is for quickly creating plans, assigning tasks, and collaborating. Planner plugs in with Teams and the rest of Microsoft 365, too. Some features of Planner are below.

• With a familiar getting-started experience, you can create new Kanban boards in minutes, without expert help.
• Plans are comprised of content-rich task cards that contain expected elements like due dates and extra elements like files and labels. Everything is in Planner, so you can search less and work more.
• Planner automatically visualizes task status into pie and bar charts for you with no setup required.
• Planner has iOS, Android, and web apps
• Planner and Teams work well together. The Tasks app in Teams combines all your Planner and To Do tasks and pairs team and personal to-dos with advanced collaboration tools.

Note that unlike Project which has a desktop app, Planner is only web-based on Windows 10, though there are mobile apps for iOS and Android. It is also designed around Teams and can plug in with Teams to help you track things while you collaborate with coworkers. While it’s not as extensive as Microsoft Project, for most people it will get the job done.

It’s also worth noting that Planner is going through a rebrand, at least in Teams. Microsoft recently renamed the Planner app in Teams to “Tasks” as part of putting both Planner and To Do front and center on the collaboration platform. They’re looking to merge the two at some point.

Microsoft To Do

Last on the list is Microsoft To Do. This is one of the most lightweight of the project management tools.  According to Microsoft, To Do is all about “prioritizing and completing the most important things every day.” To Do has both a consumer version which you can use in your personal life, as well as a work version. You can see some of the features of To Do Below.

• Set yourself up for success with My Day, intelligent and personalized suggestions to update your daily to do list.
• Enjoy To Do across iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, and the web
• Shared to do lists help keep you connected with friends, family and colleagues.
• Break tasks down into simple steps, add due dates, and set reminders for your daily checklist to keep you on track

Note that Planner and To Do plug into Microsoft Teams better than Project does. So, if you’re already using Teams, then you might want to consider To Do or Planner instead. You can learn more about To Do here. 

Again, keep in mind that Microsoft is looking to centralize its tools a bit, so To Do is getting pushed into the “Tasks” app in Teams, as part of a three-phase effort. The name change is purely cosmetic though, and the functionalities are still the same in Teams.

Microsoft Lists, and The best of Microsoft 365

To end, we also want to make note of Microsoft Lists. While this isn’t really a project management tool, it shares a lot of its heritage with To Do, Planner, and Project. Lists is intended as an app to share and track information. With lists, users are able to track information such as workflow issues, contacts, issues tracking, and status reporting within Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook. There’s also a Lists mobile app, too.

If there’s one thing in common between these three tools, it is that they’re all part of Microsoft 365. Though we think that Project and Project Online is one of the most extensive project management solutions from Microsoft, Planner, and To Do seem to be the one for most small businesses. We’ve been covering this over the past few months in our “Getting Started” series, so feel free to check it out.