Add custom fields in Planner

Short answer: custom fields in Planner are a premium plan feature. Microsoft's feature table shows "Create and use task custom fields" as "View Only" for Office 365 licenses and "Yes" for Planner Plan 1, Plan 3 and Plan 5. If your team is on a basic plan, you can stand in for a custom field with labels, task name rules, checklists or a SharePoint list. Each stand-in has limits, and this guide shows where they are.

Disclosure first: I build on Microsoft 365, so I lean toward Microsoft tools. This guide prints no Microsoft prices, because prices differ by plan and change often. It also does not repeat the full basic versus premium comparison. For that, see "Planner Premium or basic Planner for a 10 person team".

What a custom field is

A custom field is a column you add to your tasks for your own data. A plain task has a title, an owner, a date and a status. A custom field lets you add things like "Client", "Cost" or "Needs follow-up".

Microsoft's page on advanced capabilities with premium plans says you can "Create up to ten new fields to help you keep track of important information". It lists five types:

Text
Date
Number
Yes/No
Choice

The page sits under the heading "Premium features". It points to a separate Microsoft article, "Create a custom field", for the steps. Exact names in the menus may differ, so follow the steps in your own Planner at https://planner.cloud.microsoft and in Microsoft's article.

What Microsoft says about who can use them

Microsoft's Project for the web service description has a feature table. The row "Create and use task custom fields" shows "View Only" for Office 365 licenses and "Yes" for Plan 1, Plan 3 and Plan 5. The same page says: "This table may change without notice." It also carries this note: "Microsoft Project for the web is retiring on August 1, 2025." The next sentence reads: "You can continue using most of the Project for the web capabilities in Microsoft Planner once it's rolled out to your organization."

Microsoft's Planner admin page says a Project Plan 1 "is required to create premium plans and access additional views". It adds that "Advanced features include report creation, Timeline (Gantt) view, dependencies, sprints, custom fields, team workload, and managing goals."

The Microsoft 365 roadmap lists item 566867, "Planner: Local Custom Fields/Columns". It says: "Custom Fields let you tailor your plans to match the way your team works. Add Text, Number, Date, Yes/No, and Choice fields to capture the information that matters most." Its status reads "In development". Ask your admin what your tenant shows today.

What this means today: Microsoft's feature table shows "View Only" for Office 365 licenses, so with only that license, plan on not being able to create a custom field. Your options are to ask your admin about a premium license for the people who set up plans, or to use a stand-in.

Stand-in 1. Labels for short tags

Labels are the nearest built-in feature on a basic plan. Microsoft's page "Flag your tasks with labels" says: "On the card, select Add label, and then select from one of the 25 labels in the list." To rename a label, it says: "select the pencil icon next to it in the list, and then enter a new name for it."

Microsoft also says: "Note that renaming the label will affect all instances where that label color is used in the plan." So a rename changes the label on every task that uses it.

Microsoft's training page says you can filter tasks by Labels, and that Group by lets you pick "Bucket, Assigned to, Progress, Due date, Labels, or Priority". So labels can act like a Choice field you can filter and group on.

One way to start (this is our advice, not a Microsoft rule):

Decide on one Choice-style field you want, such as Type of work.
Rename one label for each value, with a short prefix so they sort together: "Type: Repair", "Type: Install", "Type: Inspect".
Write the meaning of each label in the plan description or the first task, so new people know them.
Use the board's filter menu to show one label at a time.
Review once a month. Remove labels no one uses.

Limit: the plan has 25 labels in total. If you need Type, Client and Site as three fields, they share those 25. Keep each group small.

Stand-in 2. Rules for the task name

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: when you need a value that is not a short tag, such as a client number, put it at the start of the task name in a fixed pattern. For example: "Client 12 | Roof check". People can search the plan for "Client 12".

Rules that keep it clean:

Pick one pattern and write it in the plan description.
Put the value first, then a separator, then the job.
Use ID numbers like "Client 12" or "Member 104", not full names.
Do not put dates in the task name. Use the due date field.

Stand-in 3. Checklists for Yes/No

Microsoft's Planner limits page lists "Maximum checklist items in a task" as 20. A checklist item can stand in for a Yes/No field, such as "Parts ordered" or "Customer called".

One way to start (our advice, not a Microsoft rule):

Make a short checklist you want on every task, with 3 to 5 items.
Copy that checklist into each new task.
Treat a ticked item as Yes.

If you need to sort or filter on the answer, use a label or a list instead.

Stand-in 4. A SharePoint list when you need real columns

If you need Number, Date and Choice columns that you can filter, a SharePoint list gives you typed columns without a premium Planner plan. For the choice between a board and a list, see "Microsoft Planner vs SharePoint list for tracking team work".

If you try this, here is one way to start:

Open Microsoft 365 at https://www.microsoft365.com and create a list in Microsoft Lists.
Use the Title column for the job name. Title is required by default, so rename it or turn off Require.
Add a Choice column called Status with number prefixes so your order is kept: 1 New, 2 In progress, 3 Done. A Choice column sorts by its text, and the prefix keeps your order. Set a default value of 1 New, so a new row never has a blank status.
Add a Number column for quantities, a Date column for the due date, and a Yes/No column for follow-up. Set the default value on the Yes/No column.
Add a Person column for the owner.
Make a view that hides finished work. Microsoft says filters with [Today] or [Me] need the classic view editor (Edit current view, then Filters). Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: set blank and "is not equal to" filters in the classic view editor too.

Views are not security. A hidden view does not stop someone with access to the list from seeing the rows.

Honest limits of the stand-ins

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: use labels for short tags, not for numbers or dates.
Task name rules depend on people following the pattern.
Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: do not count on sorting a whole plan by a checklist item.
A SharePoint list is a second tool. People then have two places to look.
Microsoft says the Planner limits "can be raised or lowered from time-to-time without a prior notice", so check the limits page again before you build around a number.

What to avoid

Do not buy premium for every person on day one. Start with the people who set up plans.
Do not create 25 labels on day one. Start with one group of 4 or 5.
Do not use the same label color for two meanings. A rename changes every task that uses that color.
Do not rely on task name patterns without writing them down.
Do not run the same work in Planner and in a list at the same time. People will not know which one is true.
Do not assume a feature stays the same. Microsoft says its feature table may change without notice.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Can I add custom fields in Planner on a basic plan?

Microsoft's feature table shows "Create and use task custom fields" as "View Only" for Office 365 licenses and "Yes" for Planner Plan 1, Plan 3 and Plan 5. Ask your admin which license you have, and look at a task in your own plan. Exact names in the menus may differ.

How many custom fields can I add?

Microsoft's page on advanced capabilities with premium plans says "Create up to ten new fields to help you keep track of important information".

What types of custom field does Planner have?

Microsoft lists five: Text, Date, Number, Yes/No and Choice.

How many labels can a plan have?

Microsoft's page says to "select from one of the 25 labels in the list". You can rename them. Renaming affects every task in the plan that uses that label color.

Can I filter or group tasks by label?

Yes. Microsoft's training page says you can filter by Labels, and Group by includes Labels as an option. Exact names in the menus may differ.