Microsoft Planner custom templates: what the July 2026 rollout means for your organisation
From July 2026, Microsoft Planner will let users turn any existing plan into a reusable template that can be shared across a Microsoft 365 Group. On paper, it’s a welcome time saver: no more rebuilding the same project structure from scratch every time a new client, campaign or workstream kicks off. In practice, it also introduces a new type of shared asset that nobody currently owns, and that’s the part worth paying attention to.
What’s changing
Any Planner user will be able to publish a plan as a template using Share > Publish as template. Templates carry across tasks, buckets, labels, goals, notes, checklists and attachment links, but not task progress or status, so every new plan starts clean. They’re stored and shared at the Microsoft 365 Group level and appear in “Shared” and “Created by me” galleries when someone starts a new plan.
There’s no admin switch to flick. The feature rolls out enabled by default, worldwide, between early and late July 2026, and existing Planner and Microsoft 365 Group permissions carry over unchanged (Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 512431).
Quick summary
Microsoft Planner’s new custom templates feature, rolling out from July 2026, covers:
- converting any existing plan into a reusable template shared across a Microsoft 365 Group
- tasks, buckets, labels, goals, notes, checklists and attachment links carried into the template
- task progress and status reset automatically in every new plan created from it
- creation, reuse and deletion available to any group member, with no admin setup required
But none of this is centrally governed. Ownership, naming and lifecycle still need to be agreed internally, or templates will drift and sprawl in exactly the way ungoverned SharePoint content already has.
Why this matters
The interesting detail isn’t the feature itself, it’s what Microsoft has quietly left out of it. There’s no approval step before a template goes live, no owner attached to it, and no way to stop it being used incorrectly. Three things stand out:
- Anyone in the group can delete a shared template. Not just the person who created it. If a template underpins how three different teams kick off projects, one person removing it affects all of them, with no warning and no recovery path built in.
- Templates don’t stay in sync. If you refine a template after teams have already adopted it, none of the plans already created from it will inherit the change. Over time, “the same” project type can quietly drift into several inconsistent versions.
- Visibility is inherited from group membership, not defined by the template itself. Whoever governs your Microsoft 365 Groups is, by extension, governing who can see and reuse your templates, whether that was the intention or not.
None of this is a flaw exactly, it’s simply governance being left to the customer. That’s a familiar pattern for anyone who has dealt with SharePoint permission sprawl or ungoverned Power Platform environments: a genuinely useful capability ships with no guardrails, and the organisations that get ahead of it early avoid the mess that turns up eighteen months later.
Who’s affected
- Anyone with Microsoft Planner access
- Members of Microsoft 365 Groups that use Planner
- Teams running recurring or repeatable project workflows (onboarding, campaigns, client delivery, change requests)
What we’d recommend doing now
No administrative configuration is required, so there’s nothing to “turn on” or block. The useful work here is process, not IT:
- Decide who’s allowed to publish templates. Not everyone needs to be a template author. Agree this before people start doing it informally.
- Set a naming and ownership convention before templates start appearing in shared galleries, so teams aren’t left guessing which version is current or who to ask.
- Fold this into existing Microsoft 365 Group governance. If group membership and lifecycle policies aren’t already tidy, template sprawl will simply be the next symptom of that, not a new problem in its own right.
- Brief your Planner users. Make sure people understand that editing a template won’t update plans already created from it, and that any group member can delete a shared template outright.
Where this fits with your wider Microsoft 365 governance
This is a small feature, but it’s a useful prompt to check something bigger: how well-governed are your Microsoft 365 Groups and the content that lives inside them? We’ve written before about how SharePoint permissions get out of control in exactly this kind of ungoverned-by-default way, and Planner templates are the same pattern arriving in a different app.
If you’d like a second opinion on how ready your organisation is for changes like this, our team can help in a few ways:
- Talk to a consultant about tightening up your Microsoft 365 Group governance before template sprawl becomes a problem worth fixing.
- Book a free Microsoft 365 risk and cost health check if you’re not confident about who can see, edit or delete shared content across your tenant.
- Explore our Microsoft 365 user training if the gap is less about policy and more about making sure your teams use tools like Planner consistently.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you create a template in Microsoft Planner?
Yes. From July 2026, any plan can be turned into a reusable template using Share > Publish as template. The template is then shared with everyone in that Microsoft 365 Group, not just the person who created it.
How do you create a task template in Microsoft Planner?
Open the plan you want to reuse, select Share, then Publish as template. Tasks, buckets, labels, goals, notes, checklists and attachment links all carry across, but task progress and status do not, so every new plan starts from scratch.
Do you need admin permissions to publish or use a Planner template?
No. This is not an admin-controlled feature. Any member of the relevant Microsoft 365 Group can publish, reuse or delete a shared template, using the same Planner and group permissions that already apply.
Will editing a template update plans that were created from it earlier?
No. Templates and the plans made from them are not linked. If you improve a template later, none of the plans already created from the old version will change, which can leave different teams working from slightly different processes without realising it.
Can a shared template be deleted by anyone in the group?
Yes. Any member of the Microsoft 365 Group can delete a shared template, not only the person who created it. It is worth agreeing ownership and naming conventions before templates start appearing in shared galleries.
When is this rolling out?
General availability begins worldwide in early July 2026 and is expected to complete by late July 2026, associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 512431.