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Microsoft Teams: This new Tasks feature rolls out to all Microsoft 365 users

The Tasks in Teams planning and task management app reaches general availability for Microsoft 365 customers.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Microsoft has announced general availability of Tasks in Teams, the company's planning and managing tasks app for its popular collaboration platform. 

Microsoft started rolling out Tasks in Teams in July and now says it's been completely rolled out to all customers with a Microsoft 365 subscription except government. 

Microsoft says it will launch Tasks in Teams as part of its government cloud "in the coming months". Tasks in Teams will launch on Government Community (GCC) High and the Department of Defense (DoD) after that. 

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GCC High and DoD customers are also still waiting for Microsoft to deliver its new Large Gallery option in Teams that supports 49 participants on a single screen. However, that feature should be rolling out this month, according to Microsoft's Teams roadmap.   

Microsoft announced Tasks at its Ignite 2019 conference. The app brings together Microsoft Planner and Microsoft To Do in Teams and is part of Microsoft's efforts to build tools to help people adapt to remote working under the pandemic, which has meant more video meetings with colleagues, often on Teams. 

During the initial rollout in July, Tasks was called Planner on the desktop but Tasks on mobile. With general availability, Microsoft is calling it Tasks by Planner and To Do on the desktop. Later this year, it will just be called Tasks on both desktop and mobile.   

Tasks in Teams becomes the single place for team plans and individual tasks, offering a space for collaboration alongside chats, meetings, and files. 

Microsoft plans to kick off the rollout of Tasks in Teams for the Teams app on Android and iOS soon. The rollout should be complete for all customers on non-government clouds in November. Users can find Tasks in Teams on the mobile app's More option (…) at the bottom of the app's interface. Tasks on mobile doesn't need to be installed. 

Microsoft is working on giving users the option of creating tasks from Teams chats and channel conversations via a tab.  

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The Tasks in Teams app is part of Microsoft's effort to deliver a consistent tasks experience across its Microsoft 365 products, including Outlook, Planner, To Do, and Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Teams is central to that plan via the integration of Planner and To Do in Tasks in Teams. 

General availability of Tasks in Teams follows last month's launch of the Lists spreadsheet app for Teams. The Lists app is designed to help collaboration for a variety of tasks from tracking patients to loans and inventory management. 

Tasks in Teams becomes the single place for team plans and individual tasks, offering a space for collaboration alongside chats, meetings, and files. 

Image: Microsoft
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