What are task labels?

Labels are a set of tags you can attach to Task cards in a Plan. They’re colored bars that display on your task card at a glance In Board view. 

You can use Labels for many reasons. People most often use Labels the same way they would a custom field or tag; expanding the use of labels to include new fields not available by default. 

For instance, the default task fields available to you are:

• Bucket: The section or group of tasks your task is tied to
• Assignee: The person(s) assigned to the task
• Start & Due Date: Set a start and end date for your task
• Status: Choose between Not Started, In Progress, or Complete
• Priority: Choose between Low, Medium, High, or Urgent

The beauty of using Labels is that your method of using them is entirely up to you and your team. They add an additional layer of specificity by enabling you to create custom insights for each task.

There are two ways to add labels to task cards:

1. Within an open task card
2. Directly on the board

Add a label to an open task card

Labels are named after colors by default and can only be changed within an open task card.
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• Open a task card to display its details
• Click the Search for label field to expand a list of labels (As of Q4 2021, there are 25 labels and the default name of each reflects the name of each color shown).

• Click the pencil icon to edit a label name. Use the text field to rename your labels. Repeat this process for as many labels as needed.

Add a label from the board view

Once you've edited your label names, you can add them to task cards directly from the board view.

• From the board view, click the ellipses button to expand more options
• Hover you cursor over Label to expand the list of labels you created. Add as many labels to your task cards as needed.

Group tasks by Labels

To get the most out of labels, you can group all tasks on your board by Labels.

• Expand the Group by options in the top-right corner of the board
• Select Labels in the drop-down
• All task cards on the board will arrange themselves into columns displaying each label, as well as a column for task cards with no labels

Naming considerations

When naming and adding labels to task cards, we suggest you consider the following:

1. Don't use labels to track general task status or priority. Keep in mind that there are already a few default fields you can use to track task progress, priority, and due dates. So using Labels to show that a task is in progress or high priority could be redundant since you can use the fields already available to track those items. We recommend using labels to track insights on tasks that aren't available out-of-box like tracking departments, request types, or sprint counts.
2. You can't customize the order in which multiple labels appear on a task card. Planner seems to have an unclear default sequence for how labels appear. So keep that in mind as you build create labels for your board. If the order in which labels appear is a crucial component of your team's workflow, this could very well be a deal breaker.

Enhance your task cards

Labels enable your team to add a new layer of specificity to your action items without having to use them for general task statuses and other out-of-box fields. While there are some sorting limitations, the ability to group tasks by label helps you drill down to the right task when labels is you best grouping method for the moment. You'll only have 25 labels to use, so use them wisely.