Copy a task with multiple assignees to another bucket

[Matt_uhb]

I have an MS Planner plan called, for the sake of it, Plan A, and it contains 3 buckets ToDo, InProgress, and Complete.

The plan contain tasks assigned variously to User1, and/or User2, and/or User3

In an ideal world, when I mark the tick-box of a task in ToDo, it would move automatically to InProgress, and set the status to 'In Progress'.  If I did the same to a task in In Progress, the task would move to Complete and change its status accordingly.

Since this seems impossible to do, I have made a flow that is triggered when a task is marked as complete, makes a new task in the next bucket in the sequence, sets the progress accordingly, then copies all of the details from the original task into the new one in the new bucket (with a view to deleting the original when done).  All fine and dandy... except for the Assignees.

If I try to copy the Assignees from the original task, the flow creates a separate task for each person assigned - e.g.,  if a task titled DoThis has both User2 and User3 in the Assigned to field, the flow creates a new task in the next bucket, as expected, called DoThis, but only assigned to User2, and then another task, also called DoThis, but assigned to User3. 

The Assignments output is largely opaque to me:

"assignments":{"3998d566-ec2d-483a-a352-8536b28aa415":{"@odata.type":"#microsoft.graph.plannerAssignment","assignedDateTime":"2023-02-10T11:05:19.5352031Z","orderHint":"8585255798259580079P^","assignedBy":{"user":{"displayName":null,"id":"8b470c8b-ca92-4b05-9e83-caac1466d818"},"application":{"displayName":null,"id":"09abbdfd-ed23-44ee-a2d9-a627aa1c90f3"}}},"21f57ea7-19e7-4e04-b975-4479cf1f1144":{"@odata.type":"#microsoft.graph.plannerAssignment","assignedDateTime":"2023-02-10T11:05:15.4037417Z","orderHint":"8585255798301363385PB","assignedBy":{"user":{"displayName":null,"id":"8b470c8b-ca92-4b05-9e83-caac1466d818"},"application":{"displayName":null,"id":"09abbdfd-ed23-44ee-a2d9-a627aa1c90f3"}}},"8b470c8b-ca92-4b05-9e83-caac1466d818":{"@odata.type":"#microsoft.graph.plannerAssignment","assignedDateTime":"2023-02-10T11:05:22.1758543Z","orderHint":"8585255798233329787P1","assignedBy":{"user":{"displayName":null,"id":"8b470c8b-ca92-4b05-9e83-caac1466d818"},"application":{"displayName":null,"id":"09abbdfd-ed23-44ee-a2d9-a627aa1c90f3"}}}},

 I've tried making an array and pulling the value of Assignments By User into it, but then I get flow failures and Template language errors (no doubt due to my own ignorance and error, rather than any fault of Power Automate) (also end up with Apply to Each boxes popping up everywhere)and I've had a dabble with Filter, Compose etc but I obviously don't understand the function enough to pull it off - so I'd really appreciate any help here.

I've attached screenshots of the flow, now pruned down to what works.  Happy to supply more information if needed.

Thanks

[v-liwei-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Matt_uhb 

You can concatenate the assigned to user id with a semicolon and put them in a string variable.

I have made a test for your reference:

Best Regards,

Levi

[Matt_uhb]

Hi Levi,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure how it got marked as Solved as this is still failing I'm afraid.  I get the following output

{
  "error": {
    "code": "",
    "message": "Schema validation has failed. Validation for field 'Assignments', on entity 'Task' has failed: The assignee id is invalid.",
    "innerError": {
      "date": "2023-02-16T12:42:41",
      "request-id": "b4984c9f-62f5-4d4b-b8cb-1dbda3352f63",
      "client-request-id": "b4984c9f-62f5-4d4b-b8cb-1dbda3352f63"
    }
  }
}

[Matt_uhb]

The value of varAssignees after following your process is just 3998d566-ec2d-483a-a352-8536b28aa415

The flow then fails when trying to set this as an assignee.

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @Matt_uhb 

Could you please show your screenshot of your flow in details screen?

Best Regards,

Levi

[Matt_uhb]

Hi @v-liwei-msft 

I've stripped it back to the where it it was at the beginning.

The steps are: 

1. When a task is completed. //(This is the trigger.)
2. Get task details.
3. Initialise variable. //(This initialises the varAssignees variable)
4. Switch. (Uses the value of 'Bucket ID' for the On field. The switch contains 2 cases, but for the sake of this I only need the first one.)
4.1 Case. (This contains the following Steps...)
4.1.1. Create a task in Bucket2. This creates a new task in 'Bucket2' using the 'Title', 'Start Date Time', and 'End Date Time' from the original task from Step 1.
4.1.2. Update a Task. (This uses 'outputs('Create_a_task')?['body/id']' as the Task Id, and sets the Progress to 'In Progress'.)
4.1.3. Apply to each. (This uses 'outputs('Get_task_details')?['body/checklist']' as its input.
4.1.3.1 Update task details. (This fetches the 'Task Id', 'Checklist Id', 'Checklist Title', and 'Checklist is Checked' values from the Create a Task Step (Step 4.1.1), and the Description details from Get Task Details (Step 2), and applies them to the new task.)

Screenshots

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @Matt_uhb 

Thanks for the screenshots.

According to the screenshot you provided, I didn’t see your flow according to my suggestion, please try the steps in the screenshot I gave you.

Best Regards,

Levi

[Matt_uhb]

Hi Levi, 

Thanks again for your help.

As I said in my post above, I tried your initial suggestion and got an error as the resultant ID was not recognised as valid, so I took those steps out, but forgot to screenshot them before doing so.

I've put them back in again so I could get screenshots, which are below...

Flow Steps:

Outputs:

Error:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "",
    "message": "Schema validation has failed. Validation for field 'Assignments', on entity 'Task' has failed: The assignee id is invalid.",
    "innerError": {
      "date": "2023-02-20T19:57:32",
      "request-id": "cd6fb193-ba8a-4e40-b7f0-43ccff45c173",
      "client-request-id": "cd6fb193-ba8a-4e40-b7f0-43ccff45c173"
    }
  }
}

Please let me know if I've missed anything.

Kind regards

Matt

[v-liwei-msft]

Hi @Matt_uhb 

Please note that a semicolon is added after the dynamic content in Append to string variable。

Best Regards,

Levi

[Matt_uhb]

Hi @v-liwei-msft 

Oops, my bad.  The devil is in the details. 🙂 

That is now working perfectly. 

Thanks again for all your help and patience.

Kind regards

Matt