Get Planner Task Details with Power Automate - Assignees, subtasks, buckets, dates!

Introduction

This tutorial will guide you through creating a Power Automate flow to extract task details from Microsoft Planner. You will learn to pull important data, such as assignee names, task descriptions, statuses, buckets, subtasks, and tags, and store it in a SharePoint file. This process can enhance your project management capabilities and allow you to visualize data using Power BI.

Step 1: Create the Power Automate Flow

1. Open Power Automate:

   • Sign in to your Microsoft account and navigate to Power Automate.

2. Select Flow Type:

   • Click on "Create" to start a new flow.
   • Choose "Scheduled cloud flow" if you want to run it at specific intervals, or "Instant cloud flow" for manual execution.

3. Set Flow Trigger:

   • For a scheduled flow, define the start time and frequency.
   • For an instant flow, choose a manual trigger.

Step 2: Add Microsoft Planner Connector

1. Search for Planner:

   • In the flow designer, click on "New step".
   • Search for "Planner" and select the "List tasks" action.

2. Configure the Planner Connection:

   • Choose the relevant Group ID and Plan ID from which you want to extract tasks.

Step 3: Loop Over Tasks to Get Details

1. Add an Apply to Each Control:

   • After listing tasks, add an "Apply to each" action to iterate through each task.

2. Select Task Value:

   • Use the output from the "List tasks" action to set the value for the loop.

Step 4: Get Assignee Names and Handle Errors

1. Add Get Task Details Action:

   • Inside the loop, add an action to "Get task details".
   • Pass the task ID from the current item in the loop.

2. Extract Assignee Information:

   • Use the output to retrieve assignee names.
   • Implement an error handling mechanism for cases where profiles do not exist:
     • Use a condition to check if the profile returns an error and handle it accordingly.

Step 5: Retrieve Planner Flags Data

1. Add Another Step Inside the Loop:
   • Get the flags associated with each task.
   • Store this data for later use.

Step 6: Store Data in SharePoint

1. Add SharePoint Connector:

   • After collecting all necessary data, add a new action for SharePoint.
   • Use "Create file" action to store the data in a SharePoint document library.

2. Configure File Details:

   • Specify the site address and document library.
   • Define the file name and set the file content using the collected task details.

Conclusion

You have now created a Power Automate flow that extracts detailed task information from Microsoft Planner and saves it in SharePoint. This automation enables better project management and data visualization. As a next step, consider connecting your SharePoint data to Power BI for enhanced reporting and dashboards. If you encounter issues, refer to the common errors section on Christine Payton's blog for troubleshooting tips.