Can admins force Microsoft Planner task comments to email all assignees?

Hi @Cody Goble, 

I hope you are doing well. 

Thank you for reaching out and for sharing your experience with Planner notifications. 

At this time, Microsoft Planner does not have a tenant-level or admin setting that forces task comments to send email notifications directly to all assignees or to the task owner. 

For tasks in basic or legacy Planner plans, comments are posted to the Microsoft 365 Group conversation connected to the plan. Email notifications are usually sent only to people who have already participated in that specific task’s comment thread by commenting on the task before. 

Because of this, an assignee or task owner may not receive an email notification when a new comment is added unless they have previously commented on that task. Legacy Planner comments also do not support @mentions, so a specific user cannot be tagged in a comment to notify them directly. 

This is expected behavior in Planner and cannot currently be changed through an admin or tenant setting. 

To help make sure important updates are seen, you can use the following options: 

• Ask the task owner or assignee to leave a quick comment on the task first.  Once they have commented, they should be more likely to receive future email notifications for that task’s comment thread. 
• For urgent or important updates, use Microsoft Teams instead. A Teams message or post in the related channel is usually more reliable for getting someone’s attention quickly. 
• If your Planner experience includes the newer Task chat feature, use @mentions there to notify the right person more directly. 

For now, Teams or Task chat with @mentions, where available, are the most reliable ways to make sure the right people are notified directly.

For more information, please refer to this official documentation Comment on tasks in Microsoft Planner - Microsoft Support 

I understand how important this functionality is for your workflow, therefore, I recommend submitting feedback directly to Microsoft via the Feedback Portal to help prioritize this feature in future updates. 

Sharing your experience through this channel is the most impactful way to advocate for a change that would benefit you and other users.     

Note: As community moderators, we kindly ask for your understanding that our access to internal development details is limited. Our primary role is to guide users toward the appropriate resources and support channels. While we may not have  influence product design decisions and have limited access to internal development details , we’ll continue doing our best to support you within the scope of our responsibilities.        

Once you’ve submitted your feedback, feel free to share the link here. I’d be happy to upvote it to help increase its visibility.  Moreover, if you are unable to submit feedback, please inform me at your convenience. In that case, I will gladly assist by submitting it on your behalf to ensure your request is properly captured.             

Additionally, as other users have raised similar concerns and may not be aware of where to share their feedback, I hope this response helps clarify the situation and suggests a potential next step. Upvoting this information can make it more visible to others in the community who may be facing the same issue, making it easier for them to find guidance and contribute their feedback as well.       

Thank you again for your time and for raising this important usability concern. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out.       

Wishing you a smooth rest of your day.

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