With task publishing in Microsoft Teams, operations managers and other business leaders can centrally define tasks and distribute them to the teams across your organization who must perform the work. You create a list on the Publishing page of the Planner app, add tasks to it, and then publish the list to the teams (locations) that you choose.
Completion requirements can be added to tasks as part of task publishing. Completion requirements allow you to enforce certain actions as prerequisites for task completion, so a task can’t be marked complete unless those actions are completed first. This increases clarity and first-time completion success for frontline managers and workers. It also helps prevent tasks from being incorrectly marked complete before all the necessary steps are completed.
Three types of completion requirements are available in task publishing: checklist requirement, form requirement, and approval requirement.
You can apply one or more completion requirements to a task whenever you add or edit tasks in a publishable task list. When that task is published, task recipients must complete all completion requirements on the task before they can mark it complete. Task recipients can complete the completion requirements using the Planner app in Teams on desktop, web, or mobile.
This capability helps provide peace of mind to both the employee and business leaders that the right steps were completed before the task was marked complete
In this article
Set a checklist requirement
When you set a checklist requirement, task recipients must complete all items on the checklist before they can mark the task complete.
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In the task list, select the task title to open the task.
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Under Checklist, add your items. You can add up to 20 items.
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Turn on the Required toggle.
Note: The Required toggle is hidden if the task doesn’t have any checklist items.
Recipient team experience
When a user on the recipient team—typically a frontline worker or manager—opens the task, they’ll see the checklist items, with an indication that the checklist items are required. They can't mark the task complete until all checklist items are marked complete. When all requirements are met, any frontline employee can mark the task complete.
Add a form requirement
You can add up to two forms to a task for task recipients to fill out before they can mark a task complete. You can create a new form or use any form previously created through task publishing.
This feature is powered by Microsoft Forms and allows you to collect information from your teams without having to individually contact each location.
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In the task list, select the task title to open the task.
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Under Requirements, choose Required form.
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Under Select a group, choose a group. Members of this group will be able to view the form responses. Be sure to choose a group that includes the people you want to share the form responses with.
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Under Form options, choose whether you want to create a new form or use an existing form in the group.
If you're creating a new form
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Under Text to display on task, enter a name for the form, and then select Create and add to task.
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A new blank form is created and added to the task. Select Open to open the form, and then add your questions to it.
Notes:
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Include a question that identifies the location of the team, such as retail store number, so you can match the response with the location.
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Make sure the form settings allow respondents to edit their responses.
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If you're using an existing form
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Under Choose an existing form to add, search for and select the form you want to add.
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Under Text to display on task, enter a name for the form, and then select Add to task.
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View form responses
After you publish the task list, you’ll want to view the form responses from task recipients.
Open the form, and go to the Responses tab. From here, you can:
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See summary information about your form and responses.
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Select View results to see response details of each respondent.
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Select More Details under each question to see the name of each respondent and their response.
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Select Open in Excel to view responses in an Excel workbook. The workbook provides a snapshot of the current response data.
Tip: When viewing responses in Excel, sort by date completed or modified (or by the identifier and then date completed or modified) to review the most recent responses from each location. In some cases, a location might submit more than one response.
To learn more, see Check and share your form results.
Form responses with uploaded files
If your form includes one or more file upload questions, you can view the uploaded images one by one from the Responses tab, as described earlier. If you want, you can also access the folder where the files are uploaded. Uploaded files are stored under the SharePoint files of the publishing team.
The SharePoint folders are created when the first file is uploaded as part of a form response submission.
When the first file upload submission is received, the document library for the team will contain an Apps folder. Within that, a Microsoft Forms folder contains a folder with the name of your form. Within this folder is a folder for each question in the form that has uploaded files.
For example, if you added a form named “Store opening survey” that includes three file upload questions, the uploaded files are in the following folders for the group in SharePoint:
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Documents\Apps\Microsoft Forms\Store opening survey\Question
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Documents\Apps\Microsoft Forms\Store opening survey\Question 1
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Documents\Apps\Microsoft Forms\Store opening survey\Question 2
Each uploaded file name includes the team name where the task resides, the original image name, and the display name of the user account that uploaded the file and submitted the form.
For example, the file name of the image uploaded by Joni Sherman on behalf of the Seattle Store 121 team is Seattle Store 121-20210219_183537_Joni Sherman.jpg.
To see thumbnail images instead of a list of the images, go to All Documents > Tiles.
(Optional) Help recipient teams see their uploaded images
There may be cases where one member of the team completed the survey and a manager or another colleague on that team wants to review what was submitted by their teammate.
For this reason, we provide an experience for someone on the team to see the form responses that were submitted for their location. This works without any additional setup for questions that don’t require a file upload. For questions that require a file upload, the submitted files are uploaded to a folder in the publishing team, which members of the recipient teams don’t typically have access to. If a user views the form responses submitted by their team and they don’t have access to the uploaded file, they’ll see a link to the file, which takes them to a SharePoint site that allows them to ask for permissions.
You can also share the folder of uploaded files with all users in your organization. If you're comfortable sharing the folder with everyone in your organization, you can proactively complete this step and users will also see any images uploaded by their team members as part of the form response submission.
To share the SharePoint folder that contains the uploaded files:
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Go to the Documents\Apps\Microsoft Forms folder in the publishing team files.
Tip: Remember that this folder won't appear until a form with a file upload question has a response submitted.
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Locate and select the Share button for the folder. If you want, select the pencil icon to change the permissions from Can edit to Can view.
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In the box for adding names or groups, enter Everyone except external users.
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Select that group, and then select Send.
After you complete these steps, the folder and all its subfolders are shared with that group, which should include the members of the recipient teams. Because all subsequent forms will also upload files under the Microsoft Forms folder, completing this step one time should work for all past and future forms used as completion requirements by that publishing team.
To learn more about how to share a SharePoint folder, see Share SharePoint files or folders.
Recipient team experience
When a user on the recipient team—typically a frontline worker or manager—opens the task, they’ll see that submission of the form is required. They can open the form and complete the questions without leaving the task. Keep in mind that taking a photo to upload as part of form submission requires device permissions to access the camera. After the form is submitted, the task reflects that the form requirement is met. Any member of that team who views the task can also view the responses submitted by their team. When all requirements are met, any frontline employee can mark the task complete.
Add an approval requirement
When you add an approval requirement to a task, task recipients must request and receive approval from a manager before they can mark it complete.
Note: You can only add an approval requirement to tasks in standard task lists. Approval requirements aren't allowed on tasks in lists that everyone must complete. Learn more about task lists in task publishing.
This feature is powered by the Approvals app and enables frontline managers to verify that work is done to standard, which helps to increase attention to detail and accountability, especially for important tasks.
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In the task list, select the task title to open the task, and then under Requirements, choose Required approval.
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Under Approval requirement, a message appears to indicate that an approval is required.
Recipient team experience
When a user on the recipient team—typically a frontline worker or manager—opens the task, they’ll see that they must request and receive approval for the work on the task before they can mark it complete.
That frontline employee can choose a member of the team to request approval from. Typically, this is their manager. However, the employee can choose a different member of the team, which may be helpful if their manager is on vacation. The task reflects which user made the request and who they requested approval from, so the team has visibility into their request. The designated approver receives a notification from the Approvals app, and they can grant approval when viewing the task itself or from the Approvals app.
A frontline employee who views the task can see the current state of the approval request. They can't mark the task complete until the approval request reflects that it was approved. If needed, a frontline employee can cancel a request and make a new request. When the approval request associated with the task shows as Approved, that requirement is met. When all requirements are met, any frontline employee can mark the task complete.
Other Planner clients
Tasks with completion requirements are designed to be used in the Planner app within Teams. They're not currently supported in other Planner experiences, such as the Planner app for iOS or Android.
If a user is using an app outside of Teams to interact with the task, the completion requirement is still enforced. However, if someone tries to complete a task that has an unmet completion requirement, they won't be able to mark the task complete. Instead, they receive an error message.
If all completion requirements are met, a user can successfully mark the task complete from a different Planner client outside of Teams.
See also
Publish task lists to define and track work in your organization
