Choosing between Microsoft Planner and Project Online goes far beyond comparing screens and features. The decision directly impacts how your PMO organizes tasks, follows schedules and ensures deliveries. Using the wrong tool or without planning can generate delays, rework and loss of visibility over the projects, damaging costs and predictability.
Therefore, before defining which solution to adopt, it is important to understand the maturity level of your project management and what resources are essential to avoid failures in monitoring and execution.
In this article, we will continue to compare Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Projet Online addressing other characteristics that were not mentioned above.
Project Information Management
First, let's compare the two tools in relation to the information management at project level.
| Project Level Information Management | Planner | Project Online |
|---|---|---|
| List Projects for All Organisation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Portfolio view with indicators | ❌ | ✅ |
| Support for Master / Subprojects | ❌ | ✅ |
| List of projects compatible with mobile devices | ✅ | ✅ (External App) |
| Creating custom visions, groups and filters | ❌ | ✅ |
| Permission to create custom project fields | ❌ | ✅ |
| Control of who can view the projects | ✅ | ✅ |
| Allows to climb and associate documents with projects | ✅ | ✅ |
| Control of who is allowed to edit projects | ✅ | ✅ |
| Project level discussion posts | ✅ | ✅ (On the Project website) |
As we see in the above table, the Microsoft Planner presents a greater limitation in relation to permissions, creation of personalized visions, groups and vision of Portfolio.
In case of Microsoft Project Online , there is a more effective control of the project because besides being more complete still allows the creation of customized views, groups, filters and creation of custom fields.
If you want to carry out an efficient management of your company's projects, having these customization possibilities can be key to the success of your projects.
Project Task Management
The next item we evaluated is related to task management. In the table below, we can see the difference between the two tools and some of their characteristics:
| Task Management | Planner | Project Online |
|---|---|---|
| Allows display of tasks between projects | ✅ | ✅ (With External App) |
| Allows graphical display of tasks at project level | ✅ Chart Display | ✅ WBS + Gantt Format |
| Allows summary view of “my tasks” of all projects | ✅ | ✅ |
| Allows assigning a single task to multiple people | ✅ | ❌ |
| Allows association of values related to efforts and costs | ❌ | ✅ |
| Allows task level discussion post | ✅ | ❌ |
| Allows file association in individual tasks | ✅ | ✅ |
| Allows to calculate the date of completion based on predecessors | ❌ | ✅ |
| Allows Risk management, problems and “deliverables” | ❌ No native support (only via customization of Office 365) | ✅ |
| Allows pointing of entries and frame of hours | ❌ | ✅ |
Additional Resources
Finally, we have the painting we call additional resources.
| Additional Resources | Planner | Project Online |
|---|---|---|
| Has API | ✅ | ✅ |
| User interface can be customized | ❌ Soon according to Microsoft | ✅ |
| Has mobile app | ❌ | ✅ (thirds) |
When to choose each one?
Microsoft Planner it is indicated for teams that seek agility and simplicity in the organization of daily tasks. It works very well on teams that need to view activities in frames (Kanban), collaborate quickly and prioritize short deliveries.
On the other hand, Project Online serves companies that need detailed planning, complex schedule control, resource allocation and advanced reports for PMO. It is ideal when management needs predictability and governance over multiple projects.
When does it make sense to use both?
Many companies combine the two solutions to make the best of each tool. Planner provides agility for the operating team, while Project Online ensures strategic planning and visibility for managers and PMOs.
This integration allows Planner tasks to be linked to Project Online, maintaining communication between teams and centralized control for high management.
Planner or Project Online: Which way makes more sense for your company?
To help you decide which tool to choose, we recommend you answer the questions below:
- Have custom information (fields) calculated by formulas will help you in your projects?
- You need to have control of project baselines?
- You or your organization need to monitor the resource planning and capabilities using a pool of corporate resources or seeing the overall allocation in various projects? ;
- You need to register and control the hours / days spent in the tasks of your projects?
- You need to control the activities predecessors and successors from your project?
- You need to follow the progress of your projects with views and reports?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, we recommend using Microsoft Project Online because your company's project features will require a more complete level of control and in this case Microsoft Planner may not meet your needs.
Common errors while migrating from Planner to Project without planning
A frequent error is trying to migrate Planner projects to Project Online without reviewing schedules, resources and dependencies. This can generate inconsistent information, duplicate tasks and incorrect dates.
Before migrating, do a maturity analysis of your project management and prepare the team for change, ensuring that the data are organized and that the workflow makes sense in both tools.
Based on the information we brought in this article, we hope you have enough data to analyze what is the most appropriate tool for your company.
Transform your project management with the right choice
Choosing between Planner and Project Online (or even integrating both) depends on how your company manages projects today and the level of control you need to achieve.
If you want to implement the right solution, avoid errors and gain real visibility over your projects, talk to MLPro.
To learn more about Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Project Online or how to optimize your company's project management, contact us and learn more about the benefits of implementing PPM solutions.
Original content from the MLPro editorial library, fully preserved and translated for the English website.