How To Use Microsoft Teams To Do (2023)

This is a complete guide to learning about Microsoft Teams to do which is a phenomenal task tracking application. There are lots of hidden gems and features that I’m sure you haven’t seen before.

We’re going to take a look at them today. Let’s get right into it.

It is entirely free to use, and you could pretty much get it on whatever device you happen to be on to get it on the Web. Head to the website and then click on “Get Started” to either sign in or set up a new free account. You can also install the to do app on your PC; simply open up the Microsoft Store and then search for it to do.

Lastly, you could also get Microsoft to do on either an Android or an iPhone, simply open up the app store or the Play Store, search for Microsoft to do, and then go ahead and install it. Now that we have that out of the way and hopefully you have Microsoft to do it on all of your different devices.

Repeating tasks

• You can create recurring tasks right here on my task list. I have one task to add more posts to the Techieberry website.

• I want to maybe add new posts, let’s say, once a week. Furthermore, I don’t want to come in and always have to create a new task every single week for myself to create a recurring task. Simply click on one of your tasks on the task list, and that opens up this pain over on the right hand side.

• Over here, we have lots of different controls, but one of them is to set it to repeat. Let’s click on that. This opens up a submenu and I can choose how often I want this task to repeat.

• I could have it go anywhere from daily to weekly, and that might be a little bit aggressive. I don’t want to sign up to do a post every day all the way up to a year. I think weekly feels like an appropriate cadence, so let’s select that right up above. I could see that the due date should be today. This is the start of the week.
• Now, I don’t want to have to sign up to have to do a post today instead. Why don’t we set this for tomorrow? Procrastinators unite tomorrow.

Add steps to tasks

You can add steps to a task. What does that mean? Well, maybe you have a task that’s fairly complex and rather than just listing out the task on its own, you want to include some sub steps at the Techieberry company. We have some fantastic blogs, but we’re not getting enough traffic. I figured the best way to do that is to run a super commercial that will get us out in front of probably about one hundred million people here.

• I’m going to click to add a new task, and this is for a super commercial. Next, I will click on “Add the Task” so it shows up on my task list now.

• Of course, running a super commercial is fairly complex, so I want to add some steps here. I will click on the task. Once again, this opens up the pain over on the right hand side and here we see the option to add steps. Let’s click on this and add a few steps. I have now entered each of my substeps to make this happen.

• The next thing is just like being able to complete an overall task. I can come through and I could check off each one of the substeps. The great news is that I have already finished the first one. I signed the contract. Now the next step is to raise $6 million to pay for the commercial. Maybe I should have put this first on the list because it seems like you probably need the money first.

Flag email to create task

• You can flag an email in Microsoft Outlook and that will automatically show up on your task list and to do. Here, let’s take a look at my email. One of my employees sent me an email telling me she wanted to quit. Oh, this might not be the best example for today. I’m sorry. This has me a little shaken. I should probably follow up on this. Over here. There is an ellipsis in the top right hand corner. You can click on that to access more actions and on this menu, there is an option that says flag.

• Let me flag this and put it on my task list because I really need to follow up on this back in Microsoft to do, over on the left hand side. I see flagged email is one of the categories.

• When I click on this, I can see the message that I just flagged in Microsoft Outlook over here. I can then click to open this message in Outlook.

• To be able to see flagged messages, you have to make sure it’s enabled. Go to settings, gear in the top right hand corner, and go to do settings.

• If you scroll part of the way down, you will see connected apps. Make sure that flagged email is toggled on.

Add tasks using Siri

• If you have an iPhone, you can use Siri to automatically add a task to your task list on Android. This functionality is not yet there. However, it should be coming soon to take advantage of this up in the top left hand corner. Open the to do app and click on your profile picture. This opens up settings and within the settings menu, click on the option that says Siri shortcuts.

• You have the option to add two different shortcuts. You can use Siri to add a new task. You could also ask Siri to open a list of existing tasks. I want to use Siri to add a new task so I will click on this first option.

• This opens up a screen where I can configure how I interact with Siri. First off, I need to enter a phrase. When I say this phrase, Siri will know that I want to add a task for this one. Also, add to do now that I have typed it in, add to do.

• Next, I need to indicate what action Siri should take so let’s click on this option on the next screen. I want Siri to add a new task and over to the right of that, I can indicate what list I want Siri to add the task to. When I click on this, I can select another list. I’m going to add it to the tasks down below.

• I also have the show more option.

• When I click on this, there are a number of other options I can select. When I’m adding a task, do I want Siri to add it to my day? Do I want Siri to be seen as important? I could go through and set all these different settings for now, all of this looks good.

• I’m going to go back and let’s click on Add to Siri. Now that I have added my task, if I ever want to go back and modify it or maybe change the location where the task is created, I can open up this shortcuts app on my iPhone up here.

• If I click on the ellipsis, this will allow me once again to modify all of the different settings. Now on my PC, I can see the task as well so I could add a task on my phone using Siri and it would show up on the Web. It will show up in the app, basically everywhere.

Planner tasks assigned to you

• Any tasks assigned to you in Planner automatically show up in Microsoft to do now. In my planner, under our employee retention plan, I want to add a task for one of my employees (Adell) to make sure she talks to me. I want to present her with this new benefits plan where we offer more cookies to see if that sways her to stay. I have added a new task and let me assign this to Adell. Hopefully, we do this before her last day.

• Now, in Adel’s view over on the left hand side under assigned to you, one new task is showing up and this is coming directly from the Planner.

• To be able to take advantage of this, you need to go up to the gear icon in the top right hand corner and go into settings. Next, let’s click on to do settings and towards the bottom of the page, you can indicate which apps are connected apps and you have to make sure you toggle on Planner.

Share Lists

• You can share to do lists with others and you could also assign tasks to others. That way, those tasks will show up in their Microsoft to do. At the Techieberry Company, we are launching a New York City location, and there is a lot to get done. As the owner of the Techieberry Company, I don’t think anyone expects me to do any of these things. Instead, I’m going to delegate it to one of my staff members to share a list over on the left hand side. You can right click on one of your lists and you can then share the list.

• Also in the top right hand corner, you can click on Share, which opens up to share the list. Let’s click on Create Invitation Link.

• This shows me who currently has access and down below, I can copy this link and then share it with someone in my organization. I can invite via email or I could simply copy the link once I copy it and share it with others.

• I can also click on manage access here. I can limit it to only those people who currently have access and I could even turn off sharing altogether. If I no longer want people to have access to this list, I’m going to copy this link and share it with the user (Diego).
• I have now shared the list with Diego, and he has accepted the invitation in his Microsoft to do over. On the left hand side, you can see the shared list, New York City Launch. Here, we see all of the different tasks.

• If Diego wants to share this list with additional people in our organization, up in the top right hand corner, you’ll see the share icon.

• If we click on this, you can see who currently has access and he can then copy the link and invite others back.

Group Lists

• I can create groups of lists to organize my view even better. As you can see, all the different cities where we’re planning on opening the Techieberry cookie company all have to do with launches so I want to create a launch group and place all of these lists within that group.

• To create a list, click on the “New list” icon and call this launch. Once I finish typing in a name, I can click on any list and then drag it within this group here and have all of my different cities within the launches group. I can collapse the group and expand it so it helps organize my view a little bit better.

Task on all devices

• Any task that you create, whether it’s on the web on your PC or on your phone, shows up on all of your other devices. So far, we’ve been using the web to create all of our tasks and I see all of those same tasks on my phone.

• You can also access all of your to-do’s from directly within Microsoft Teams over on the left navigation bar, click on the ellipsis and either search for or navigate to tasks by Planner and here too you will see all of your to do’s.

Tasks on the Outlook desktop

• This is a quick one: anytime you add a task to Microsoft to do, it automatically syncs with the Outlook desktop app. Within Outlook, click on the task icon in the bottom left hand corner and then here too, you can see all of your tasks directly within the Outlook desktop app.

My day in Outlook on the Web

• Within Outlook on the web, you can very quickly review all of your tasks and you can also assign deadlines for your tasks using the new My Day view.
• To access the my day view, let’s go to the top navigation bar and there’s an icon for my day.” When we click on this, it will drop us on the calendar view first and we get a quick preview of what’s coming up on our calendar. To the right of that, there’s another tab for to do, when we click on this, we will see all of our upcoming tasks.
• I can click on this task and drag it onto my calendar and this way I could assign some time to work on it so it’s a very nice integration where you can drag and drop tasks between your to-do list and your calendar.

• If you’ve ever wanted to see a smart list with all of your tasks and all of your completed tasks you can very easily turn that on. Let’s go up to the settings gear in the top right hand corner, and then let’s click into to do settings within the settings prompt. Let’s scroll down the page to smart lists and here we can enable all and we can also enable completed now.

• Over on the left hand side, I have a new list with all of my tasks across all of my different lists. Also, I have another list of tasks that I have completed.

My day and suggestions

• You can use the “my day” view to focus on what’s important. Let’s go up on the left hand side and click on my day. The nice thing here is that you can build your list every single day.
• At the end of the day, the list will be flushed or cleaned out so every day you start with a clean slate. This addresses the age-old problem of having a to-do list where you add a to-do item maybe add another to-do item and your list keeps growing and growing and at some point the list becomes so large that you’re just overwhelmed and you give up on using to-do lists.
• With this, it will clear it so every day you don’t feel overwhelmed and you can just focus on a few things each day.

• Well, what do you put on your my day view and that’s where to do has some really nice intelligence or smarts. Over on the right hand side, you will see an icon for suggestions. When you click on that, it opens up a pane and here to do recommends different tasks to add to your my day view.

• Here at the very top, you can see to do is say, these tasks seem important and earlier we created this task around revisiting the benefits package, which is pretty important so let me click on this plus icon and that’s now added it to my day. This helps me focus on what’s important to me and it will help me compose a good and focused my day view.

Hashtags to categorize tags

• I can use hashtags to more easily get back to tasks in the future and also to categorize my tasks here. For instance, I see my revisit benefits package task and I’m going to double click on that, and over here, I will add a hashtag called employee retention.

• This way, I could very quickly get back to any tasks that have to do with employee retention. Now that I have entered this. I see the hashtag appear as part of the task name and it’s now a hyperlink. When I click on this, it will show me all of the different tasks that have that hashtag for employee retention.

Dark mode

• You can turn on dark mode for the to do app on both your PC and your mobile. It will inherit the OS setting for dark mode to turn on dark mode. Let’s go down to our taskbar at the bottom and type in color settings. Let’s click on color settings from the best match.

• Within color settings, you can choose your color as dark mode. You will see now that to do inherits that setting and dark mode is now turned on across all of these different screens.

For more information about Microsoft Teams to do, visit the Microsoft website.

I have done quite a bit of work today and I think we’re looking good so let me close this out.