Paul's Project Server and Project Online Blog

Create a #MicrosoftTeam for a #ProjectOnline Project using #MicrosoftFlow #Office365 #MicrosoftGraph #PPM #WorkManagement #PowerPlatform #AzureAD #Collaboration #Automation Part2

Following on from my last blog post where I started to walkthrough a new Microsoft Flow I created for creating a Microsoft Team for a Project Online project, here is the final part of the Flow. For those that missed part 1, a link can be found below:

https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/create-a-microsoftteam-for-a-projectonline-project-using-microsoftflow-office365-microsoftgraph-ppm-workmanagement-powerplatform-azuread-collaboration-automation-part1/

In the last post we finished off where the Flow action had sent the request to the Graph API to create the new Team with the new channel and new web site tab and then discussed the 202 response and teamsAsyncOperation process. The next part of the Flow’s job is to get the new Teams webUrl and update the Team URL project level custom field in Project Online.

If the Status Code response is 202 to indicate its been accepted, the Flow them moves on to the next action which is a Parse JSON action to get the Location property from the headers output from the previous HTTP action response:

Then with the Location value another HTTP action is used to call the Graph API:

This performs an HTTP GET request to the Graph API to get the targetResourceLocation property from the newly created Microsoft Team, the Location property from the previous Parse JSON action is used in the URI. The advanced options are the same for all HTTP actions where the Graph API is used so I’ve not expanded this is this post – see part 1 for details.

The next action is another Parse JSON from the previous HTTPTeamResourceLocation HTTP action message body:

This time the targetResourceLocation property is needed. Then the final Graph API call is performed to get the webUrl for the newly create Microsoft Team with another GET request. The targetResourceLocation property from the previous Parse JSON action is used in the URI:

The Flow then moves on to the final Parse JSON action to parse the data returned in the HTTPTeamWebUrl message body:

The Flow now has the new Microsoft Team web URL to update the Project Online project level custom field. The next Flow action is a Checkout project action:

This action will checkout the project, the expression used here for the Project Id property is items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’].

The next action is a SharePoint HTTP action to perform a REST call to POST to the Project Online CSOM REST API to update the custom field, this uses the same expression in the URI items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’] :

In the REST call data is sent in the body of the request. This contains the correct internal custom field name for the “Team URL” project field and the custom field value to update the field with, which is the webUrl from the previous Parse JSON 3 action. The internal custom field name would need to be updated to the correct field from your PWA instance.

The final action in this example Flow is Checkin and publish project:

This action will publish the project after updating the custom field and check in the project, the expression used here for the Project Id property is items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’].

Here are some projects that have been updated and have Microsoft Teams created:

Here is a Team for one of the test project – “1 Paul Mather Test Project 2”:

This Team has the new Project channel and the Project Page web site tab that loads the Project Details Page from PWA:

That’s it, a simple low / no code solution to create Microsoft Teams for Office 365 Project Online projects! To use this in production it needs some additional work to handle various different scenarios but hopefully this is a good starting point for someone looking to do something similar.

I will look to provide a download link for this solution starter Flow in the next few days but will post the link on my blog.

Create a #MicrosoftTeam for a #ProjectOnline Project using #MicrosoftFlow #Office365 #MicrosoftGraph #PPM #WorkManagement #PowerPlatform #AzureAD #Collaboration #Automation Part1

Following on from my Microsoft Flow theme of blog posts lately, I am a big fan of the Power Platform in general, but I love Microsoft Flow for building low / no code solutions for Office 365 Project Online. In part 1 of this blog post I will start to walkthrough a new Microsoft Flow I have created that will create a new Microsoft Team for a Project Online project with a new channel and web site tab in the channel that displays the Project PDP directly in Teams. This makes use of 2 Project level enterprise custom fields in PWA, in this example I have one flag field called “Team Required?” and one text field called “Team URL”. The flag field is used to control / request a Microsoft Team for the project and the Team URL is used to store a web URL to the newly created Microsoft Team. This Flow has a few actions, these can be seen below:

Inside the for each loop:

Inside the condition check:

The connections used in this Flow are:

The account used has full admin access to the Project Online PWA instance.

This is a scheduled Flow, I have set this to run daily, but configure the frequency as required:

It’s probably best to schedule it out of hours so that hopefully the projects it creates Microsoft Teams for are checked in at the time the Flow runs as it will edit the Team URL custom field for that project.

Next we set some variables, these variable are used when using the HTTP action to call the Microsoft Graph API. You will need to create an Azure AD app in the Azure Portal and grant it Group.ReadWrite.All Application access:

When creating the Azure AD App you will need to make note of the Application (client) ID and the Directory (tenant) ID:

You will also have to create a client secret for the app (keep this secure but make a note of the secret as you can’t view it after!):

These three strings / IDs are used in the three variables set in the Flow:

The next action is a REST call to the ProjectData API to get a the Project details for projects requesting a Microsoft Team but filtering out those that already have a Team created using this URL:

The full action details can be seen below:

The next  action is an Apply to each loop as the REST call could return more than one project the result array:

The input used is body(‘GetAllProjectsRequiringTeamCreation’)[‘value’], this is added as an expression.

The next action is another REST call but this time to the Project CSOM REST API – notice /ProjectServer rather than /ProjectData, this is the get the Project Owner’s user principal name as this is used later to set the Team / Office 365 group owner:

A variable is passed in to the URI to get the data for the current project, the expression used here is items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’].

Then a Get user profile (V2) action is used, this is used to get the user ID:

The expression used here is body(‘GetProjectOwnerUPN’)[‘UserPrincipalName’]

The Flow now has all the data required to go and create the Microsoft Team, the next action is a standard Flow HTTP action:

In this action, an HTTP POST is used to post the JSON data defined in the body to the teams endpoint in the Microsoft Graph API to create the Team. Walking through the body of the request, firstly the the team template is set, in this example it is just the standard template, then the display name is set, here the items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectName’] expression is used. The team description is then set using same text and the same expression used in the display name. Then the owner is set using the Id property in the Dynamic content from the Get user profile (v2) action. That is the basic properties set to create this team. This example creates a public team, you could look to also set the visibility property to private if you wanted a private team, the default visibility is public. In this example, a new channel is also defined, the channel display name and description is set. Within that new channel a new website tab is also defined setting the tab name and contentUrl / websiteUrl. For the URLs, this creates a web site tab with a link to the Project schedule PDP as an example, the items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’] expression variable is used to dynamically pass in the correct project ID.

The next action is a condition action to check the response back from the Graph API:

This uses the Status Code output from the HTTP action, a 202 response indicates the API call was accepted, it doesn’t mean the process is completed as creating a team generates a teamsAsyncOperation to create the team. It is recommended to make a GET request to the Location found in the response header until that call is successful and returns the targetResourceLocation, retry every 30 seconds etc. This example Flow doesn’t perform the retry, it just attempts the call to the location and would fail if it is not completed. That would need to be handled in a production environment but in this test instance I’ve not had this fail yet (works on my machine ). I will offer this Flow solution starter as a download but before I do that, I will probably at least put a delay in before making the GET request to the location.

In the part 2 of the this blog post later this week, the rest of the Flow will be detailed.