New team companions, project management software is flourishing everywhere. The term "project management is a bit of a misnomer, given that the new way of working often involves managing tasks rather than complex projects . How do you choose among the task management software available? What information is important?

Blue Soft takes a look at two market leaders and gives you its analysis, from handling to price, from security to team management. Two solutions are well known and among the best software on the market. Trello vs. Microsoft Planner, here are two well-known task managers on the market that promote collaborative work and project-based work. Who will win the match?

A similar operating principle with a different vocabulary

Trello works with tables, lists and cards. Each user can create his own table, integrate lists and detail them via cards. To go further and become a real collaborative project management platform, Trello has integrated the Power-ups (Plugins that enrich the board). Of course, all the boards are fully collaborative: each team has access to the lists, can modify them, manage their tasks and assign roles.

The Microsoft Planner solution also has its own vocabulary: plans, tasks, compartments. The care taken with the interface sets the tone: Microsoft wants to deliver a practical and modular solution. From the home page, a dashboard provides information on the progress of the project at a glance, making it a real help for project managers. If the task management is quite similar to its competitor, the Scheduler natively separates ongoing and completed projects. The sorting options personalize the display for the user. No "power-upsNo "power ups" on the side of Microsoft Planner... which doesn't need them! Fully integrated with the Office 365 suite, it already benefits from a user view, integration with the calendar, document sharing via SharePoint or group information.

Build and manage project teams

An essential part of project planning, team building in Trello is simple. Each table has its own team. These can be easily modified, whether the action comes from the user or the administrator. Boards can be visible to a team, an organization, everyone or nobody. Parameters are accessible only to the board administrator or creator.

At Microsoft, we put the team at the center. Users can talk to each other, assign tasks and share documents via the plan. Users outside of Office 365 can also be part of the team and have access to some features.

What's more,Microsoft Planner boards can be integrated into Teams with a single click, and are automatically linked to them through Office 365 magic , again. There's no need for additional modules, and it's even possible to create a Planner table directly from a Teams conversation!

Security of project information

In its most comprehensive version, Trello offers 2-factor authentication, fairly extensive administrative permissions and single sign-on for SAML providers. Vigilant on data security, the resource management tool is SOX and SOC2 type 1 certified and meets the PCI-DSS standard. Microsoft's Scheduler benefits from the same security rules as the entire Office 365. The tool is also RGPD compliant. The certificate authority policy for an app is activated in Microsoft Intune (Azure portal). No need to manipulate security in each app, the administrator can manage everything from Azure.

In terms of security, we give the Planner solution a clear advantage. Indeed, the limitation of the number of external modules avoids many security holes, and here again the native integration with all Microsoft tools is a strong point.

For more information, read our article on the 3 types of cyber attack you could face.

The prices

Trello comes in a free version with access to boards, lists, cards and options. The limits are in the team management, the number of boards per team, the access to Power-ups and security. The SaaS management software offers a "Business Class" option that can be used by a team in the company. It gives access to more functionalities without giving total freedom to the users. If the entire company uses this tool, it must switch to the full software. This way, the company controls all the parameters, reinforces its security and delegates the management to its own system administrator.

Microsoft Planner is included in the Business Premium and Business Essentials packages of Office 365. The tool for to do lists tool tool is enriched in the Premium version thanks to the Bookings and Customer Manager.

Integration of solutions

The transition from Trello as a free tool to Trello Enterprise is done in 5 steps:

  1. Define the needs
  2. Upgrade your teams
  3. Configure SSO
  4. Display guidelines
  5. Exploiting management opportunities
SSO integrations are made easier in some cases thanks to pre-built formulas. For its part, Microsoft Planner has an undeniable undeniable advantageadvantage, again through its native integration with Office 365. As soon as a company or a user works on Office 365, the Planner is naturally integrated into its global solution. The simple tool synchronizes with Office 365 Groups and Microsoft Teams. It can also copy deadlines from the Planner into the Outlook calendar.

Thanks to an intuitive path and simplified management, both tools are very useful for managing projects. The question is how to use them. If you are looking for a real project manager, Microsoft will better meet your expectations, as its competitor Trello does not include budgets or milestonesnor administration functions. In a strategy of deployment of collaborative work, we recommend you to use Planner. And we can accompany you in this strategy and the discovery of other collaborative tools of Office 365, contact us!

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