30 October, 2025 – In‑Meeting Collaboration, Tags & Planner Sync, Checklists and Templates, and Matrix Improvements

In‑Meeting Collaboration (replaces basic screen share for many scenarios)

The new in‑meeting experience goes beyond simply sharing a screen. It enables live collaboration inside the meeting so participants can edit the plan together. Key modes include:

Presenter mode:

one person presents; everyone follows the presenter’s navigation and expansions (ideal for walkthroughs and demos).

Collaboration mode

all participants may edit their own objects while optionally seeing other participants’ selections; mouse‑pointer sharing and visible cursor names can be enabled to orient collaborators.

This feature is intended to replace traditional Teams screen‑share in many cases because attendees can interact directly with the plan, reducing friction and improving meeting outcomes.

Tags / Labels — flexible metadata and Planner sync

Tags can be configured per plan (Tag names are set in Plan Settings) and may be applied to most VisPlan objects — not just Actions. When Actions are linked to Microsoft Planner, Action tags are synchronized to Planner so important metadata follows your work stream. Typical tag usage examples:

• Priority markers (High, Medium, Low)
• Risk (Risk:High, Risk:Medium)
• Discussion flags (Discuss in meeting, Needs clarification)

Tags are also visible and searchable in the List view

Checklist backup, templates and Planner recreation

Checklists (created and managed in Planner when using Planner links) are now included in VisPlan export/import JSON backups and templates. This enables a migration workflow:

1. Export a VisPlan plan (JSON) including checklist data and statuses.

2. Create a new plan from the exported template in the target team.

3. When configuring Planner synch, VisPlan will recreate the Planner tasks/checklist items in the new team’s Planner plan and preserve each item’s completion status (done/not done).

This is helpful because Planner has no native export/import; VisPlan’s backup/import workflow simplifies moving plans (and their Planner checklists) between teams.

Plan-to-Plan sync: names & descriptions

When you link items between VisPlan plans, the linked object names and descriptions now synchronize automatically. This keeps linked items consistent without manual updates and reduces drift when plans span teams or hierarchies.

RTF for Validations

Rich text formatting (RTF) is added for *validation* content (the explanatory text that links Actions to Strategic Objectives / Key Results) so authors can document why an Action contributes to a Strategic Objective. This RTF is stored and displayed in VisPlan to support clear, readable validations.

Planner sync — plain‑text conversion

We fixed an issue where RTF had previously been converted to HTML and appeared as raw code in Planner. Action descriptions pushed to Planner are now converted to readable plain text rather than raw HTML. Note that VisPlan preserves RTF until an Action description is edited in Planner.
Editing in Planner can change how the description is stored and displayed when synced back.

Validations (Action → Strategic Objective / Key Result mappings) are best visualized in the Matrix view.