Create Planner Plan, Bucket and Tasks using rows of data in Excel

[thatkyle]

Thank you, in advance, for any advice anyone can offer.

My Challenge:

I work work a small team (5 people) that would would like to use Microsoft Planner to manage over 50 events each year. Each event has the same set of tasks that need to be tracked. Unfortunately, Microsoft Planner does not allow me to automatically set the start dates and due dates for each task based on the event date. For example, I'd like to create a task that has a start date that is 60 days before the event date. If I were to do this manually (without Power Automate or Graph) I would need to create a Plan and use that as a template. Then, copy that plan to create a new plan. Then, update all start and due dates for all 50 tasks within that plan. Which means, I would have to manually update 5,000 dates (50 plans X 50 tasks X 2 dates in each task).

It's worth mentioning I am not a developer. But, I can write short snippets of code if I have clear instructions or a good example to follow. It's also worth noting that I have have read several posts related to creating Planner tasks using data in Excel. However, my lack of experience with flow seems to prevent me from following these instructions - no matter how detailed. Can someone send me a basic template that works? 

My Basic Plan:

Here's my basic plan for solving this challenge:

1. Create a basic plan in Planner that has all of the correct Buckets, Tasks and Task details for one event.

2. Export this plan to Microsoft Excel (FYI, I have Excel Online for Business as well as the desktop version).

3. Open the Excel workbook and copy and values and paste these into another workbook that has formulas to automatically update all of the start and due dates.

4. Copy all values to a new workbook as plain text (Power Automate doesn't support Excel files with formulas).

5 Save the workbook with the name of the event.

6. Create a  Power Automate Flow that reads the values in the Excel file to: 

   a. Create a new Plan based on a value saved in Excel.

   b. Create the Buckets based on values stored in Excel

   c. Create the Tasks based on values stored on each row in Excel

   d. Update the Task details based on values stored on each row in Excel

7.  Repeat steps 3 through 6 for each of the remaining events.

Lessons I've Learned:

• You can't use Power Automate to create a plan (you can do this in Microsoft Graph - but I am not a developer).
• The ""Create a Planner task and send email for a selected row in Excel (Business)" template does not work (at least, I couldn't get it to work. There's no "Flow" icon that I can click on in Excel after selecting a row. And, I am using Excel Online for Business. I recommend Microsoft remove this template - if it truly doesn't work.

 What I still need need help with:

Does anyone know how I can accomplish what I am trying to do - without me learning how to code? Realizing there is no way to create a Plan using a Power Automate flow, I am perfectly willing to create 50 plans manually. But, I am hoping I can find a solution that will at least allow me to update all of the 5,000 dates automatically.

Thanks!

[v-alzhan-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @thatkyle ,

You could create flow to create task in planner has a start date that is some days before the event date.

Best regards,

Alice       

Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Anonymous]

@thatkyle, 

I think I'm exactly where you were.

I've found on these forums a lot of good information, but still fail to get it to work completely. 

Were you able to figure out how to get this to work?

[Anonymous]

Were you able to figure this out?

I'm looking to do the same thing.

Tidbits in the forums are helping me build this out, but this is my first go-around too and i've been at this for three days with no solid flow.