#ProjectOnline custom #email notifications using #MSFlow #MicrosoftFlow #PPM #PMOT #MSProject #Exchange #Office365 #PowerPlatform #Planner Part 3
July 31, 2019 at 12:01 pm | Posted in Add-on, Administration, App, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Reporting, Workflow | 1 CommentTags: Flow, Odata, Office365, Planner, Power Platform, PPM, Project Online, Project Online Desktop Client, REST, SharePoint Online
It’s been a while since I published the last post in this mini series due to getting carried away with other Microsoft Flow goodness for Project Online. The previous post in this custom email notification series can be found below:
In the final part of this email notification series we send an email with a list of projects that have not been published in the defined period, in this example it’s set to 5 days. The Flow also creates a task in Microsoft Planner for the user to chase the project owners to update their project plans. The Flow summary can be seen below:
The trigger is based on a schedule, in this example it is running weekly. Then the Flow uses the Get past time action to get the date in the past, in this example 5 days ago. A compose action is then used to get todays date in the required format. These steps can be seen below:
The Flow then use the SharePoint HTTP action to query the ProjectData API to get the list of Projects where the last published date is on or before the past time date, in this case 5 days ago. The logic here would be changed for your requirements, for example you would also filter out projects that were completed / closed. The next action is a Create HTML table action, here we just pass in the results from the HTTP action as seen in the tooltip displayed in the screenshot below:
The final 2 actions in this Flow create the Planner task and then send the email. We pass in some variables to create the Planner task, in this example we use the output from the Today action to use todays date in the Title and used to set the due date. The task gets assigned to me in this example so I would put my PMO hat on, this would be assigned to someone in the organisation who would be checking project plan quality etc. Then the Flow sends an email, typically this could go to an individual, likely the same person the Planner task is assigned to, or it could go to a multiple people or a group / distribution list etc. In the body on the email the output from the create HTML table action is used and also the task Id for the new planner task:
When this Flow runs, this results in a new Planner task being created in the selected Planner plan:
Then the email is sent out:
As you can see, the email contains a table of test projects from my test Project Online instance that have not been published in the last 5 days and also a link to the task I have assigned in Planner.
Look out for more Microsoft Flow / PowerApps examples for Project Online in the future. For previous examples I have done, this links includes most: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/tag/power-platform/
#Microsoft #Planner Tasks in #ToDo #Office365 #WorkManagement #TaskManagement #PPM #Project
May 6, 2019 at 10:51 pm | Posted in Administration, Functionality, Information | Comments Off on #Microsoft #Planner Tasks in #ToDo #Office365 #WorkManagement #TaskManagement #PPM #ProjectTags: Office365, Planner, PPM, ToDo
A quick blog post to highlight a new feature in Microsoft Planner and Microsoft To-Do, you can now sync your Planner tasks into Microsoft To-Do!
When you access Microsoft To-Do you will see a notification in the bottom left corner asking if you want to track tasks assigned to you in Planner as seen below:
Click Show list, this then adds the “Assigned to Me” list:
Ignore the test planner tasks I have assigned, this is from one of my example Flows for Project Online!
Clicking a task will load the task details pane on the right hand side:
From here I can mark the task as complete, update the Due Date, add notes or click the link to open the task directly in Planner. Marking as complete, updating the due date or adding notes from To-Do updates the task in Planner so you can manage your tasks all from To-Do without leaving!
Here is a short video showing this new feature: https://youtu.be/y4NFZ-xqeCo
Another awesome update from Microsoft!
#Microsoft #Project Roadmap product at a glance #PPM #Office365 #Flow #PowerPlatform #Dynamics365 #Azure #AzureBoards
September 26, 2018 at 4:40 pm | Posted in Functionality, Information | 1 CommentTags: Azure Boards, Planner, PPM, Project Home, Project Online, Roadmap, VSTS
Following on from the announcements on Monday at Ignite from the Project product group, there was a session today on the Project Home and Roadmap products. For those that missed the post on the announcements, here is a link to the blog post that has some notes around this: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/microsoft-project-the-future-ignite-ppm-pmot-workmanagement-projectonline-projectmanagement/
In this blog post I will include some screen shots taken from Chris’ session today at Ignite and mention some of the features that Roadmap has. I wont talk about Project Home here as I already blogged about that previously: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/new-projectonline-project-home-office365-ppm-ui-ux-msproject-fabricui/
So Roadmap is the new product that is planned to be available early 2019. Roadmap is a product that enables organisations to visualise projects from various different tools in one timeline type view. On the first release it will support Project Online projects as well as Azure Board projects (formerly known as VSTS) with a view to supporting other types of projects in later releases such as Planner projects, new Project Service projects etc. To give you some context before we move on, here is a screenshot of a Roadmap from Chris’ slide deck today:
As you can see from the screen show about, each project is a row, each row has a name (free text – not the actual linked project name) and an owner (free select people picker from the the tenant users – not the actual linked project owner). Then in the details you can add tasks from the linked projects. On the timeline you can add key dates. You have full control over the order of the rows, move these up and down as you like using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.
Roadmaps will be created and accessed in the Project Home product, the Create New button in Project Home will contain the Roadmap option once released. This will load a blank canvas pretty much instantly. The roadmaps can be renamed at any time by clicking the name in the top left corner, that loads a Roadmap panel, here you also set the Roadmap owner:
To add a new project,firstly you would use the Add row button, type the name of the row and set the owner for the row. You can then connect the row to a Project Online project or an Azure Boards projects in the first release (more project type support to come later). When connecting a row to a project, firstly select whether it is a Project Online or Azure Boards project, then put the correct URL in for that service. Once connected to that service, you can start typing the name of the project you want to connect to then the list of projects will start to appear for you to select. You then connect to that project (using a Microsoft Flow in the background). You can then use the Add Row Item button with that row selected, that will open the add row items panel. Here you can start typing the names of the tasks you want to add then the list of tasks will appear for you to select. Once you have selected all of the tasks (you see a preview table of selected tasks with start and end dates in the row items panel) you then add those to that row. These will be linked to the source project, so as the data changes in the source project, Microsoft Flow will pick up the changes and update the synced data the Roadmap project row is using in the Roadmap common data service (CDS) database. Part of the Flow seen below:
Tasks in the roadmap can be given a status of either Unset Status, On Track, Potential Problems, At Risk or Done using the task card:
Setting the status will update the task bar on the Roadmap.
Key dates are added to the Roadmap using the Add key date button, this loads a pop to create the key date and set the status (same status options as tasks):
For Roadmaps with large numbers of projects added, you can filter by the row / project owner:
You also have a zoom control to change the zoom of the timeline.
Access to the Roadmap is controlled via the Office 365 Groups via the Roadmap interface, to add users click the Members button and type the users names:
So each Roadmap will get to make use of all the features Office 365 Groups enables such a SharePoint site, SharePoint document library, Shared Inbox, Calendars etc. Using Office 365 Groups means Roadmaps can either be private or public.
That’s is for now, but I’m looking forward to getting access to this!
Before I finish, another interesting slide Chris shared was the Platform one to give an idea of how things are architected (high level):
There are lots of exciting changes happening in Project!
Link #ProjectOnline tasks to #Planner #Microsoft365 #PPM #PMOT #MSProject
August 29, 2017 at 4:04 pm | Posted in Administration, Functionality, Information | Comments Off on Link #ProjectOnline tasks to #Planner #Microsoft365 #PPM #PMOT #MSProjectTags: Microsoft365, Office365, Planner, PPM, Project 2016, Project Online
In the latest release of Project Online Desktop Client, depending on the release channel that you are on, you might have noticed the new Planner button in the Task ribbon:
My Office version is on the Office Insider Fast channel so that I get the latest changes first but this will typically be controlled by your IT admins so you might need to wait a while until this feature reaches the Office release channel that you are on.
Hovering over the new button provides the details for this feature:
This feature allows you to create a hyperlink to the linked Planner Plan from the Planner icon in the indicators column. It could be that you have a bucket type task (sprint etc.) in the Project Online project then the detail tasks / activities might be in the linked Planner plan.
Select a task in the project then click the Planner button and a side pane will launch:
Click the “Link to existing Planner plan..” link then you will be able to type the name of the Office 365 Group that contains the Planner plan:
Start typing name of the group then select the correct group, in this example I have one called Pauls Test Plan:
Notice how it also states that it will add the resources assigned to the task into the group. Click the Create Link button:
It then shows that this task is now linked to that Planner plan:
You then get the hyperlink directly to the linked Planner Plan using the Planner icon in the indicators column or using the link in the Link to plan pane.
You can only link one task from the project plan to one Planner plan, if you try and link another task to the same Planner plan you will see this alert:
The resources added to the linked task didn’t get added to the group as suggested but as this feature is only in the Office Insider builds that might come when this is released in the other release channels. ***Update – this feature does work providing the PWA Resource email address matches the O365 user principle name. I believe other options are being explored***
For release details, see the article here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-s-new-in-Project-2016-111bcaf9-bc27-4c15-80e6-85e726307520?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#Audience=Office_Insiders
#Microsoft #Office365 #Planner goes GA #taskmanagement /#workmanagement /#teamwork part 2
June 10, 2016 at 2:57 pm | Posted in Administration, Functionality, Information | Comments Off on #Microsoft #Office365 #Planner goes GA #taskmanagement /#workmanagement /#teamwork part 2Tags: Office365, Planner, PPM
This is part 2 for the Microsoft Planner overview, for those of you that missed the first part a link can be seen below:
In this post we will look at creating a new plan in Planner with some tasks and assignments. From the Planner hub, click New Plan from the left navigation pane:
Complete the new plan form as below:
The form will validate the plan name, email address (used for conversations / discussions), enable the plan to be visible to all the members of the organisation or private – private means only members added to the plan can see it and finally give the plan a description. Click Create Plan and Planner will go off and create your plan:
Once completed you will see your plan:
At this point the plan can be updated with tasks and team members but other options such as conversations and calendars will take a bit longer to be available as this is waiting for the Office 365 group to be created:
Whilst that is provisioning I will create 5 tasks for my plan using the add task option:
I will also set a Due Date:
Then click Add Task. Repeat this process for the required tasks or activities:
Now I will switch to the Buckets view:
Here I will create some new Buckets to group my tasks:
Now I will move all of my tasks into the buckets by dragging the task cards to the correct bucket:
Now I need to add the team members to my plan using the Add Members functionality in the top right corner:
Type the name of the user then you can select the correct user to add:
The team members are now added:
I can now assign the tasks to the team members, to do this click on the task card to load the task detail pop up:
Click the Assign button and select the team member:
At this point I’ve also added a description to the task so the user CPS knows what is required and also as the Office 365 group is now set up I have started a conversation about an issue I have with the current app:
Notice the email notification too for the new comment. Repeat this for all tasks as required:
Switching to the Assigned To view you can easily see who has what assigned:
The next thing to do would be to set start dates for the tasks if needed, this is done on the task details popup:
Repeat this for all tasks as required. I also set some labels for keys tasks:
These are then visible to the right of the task card:
You can also add attachments to the tasks, when you first try to do this the storage might not yet be available as seen below:
Once this is available you can attached a file already in the OneDrive site for this plan or upload a file:
As this is a new plan I need to upload a file:
This uploads the file to the OneDrive storage that is created as part of the Office 365 group for this plan. I’ve set the document to be the preview on the task card to get a nice visual on the card:
I’ve done this for a few tasks:
Planner will take one image / the first page from the uploaded document and use that as a preview.
Also I want to set a new logo for my plan to replace the red square with PM. To do this I navigate to the Group page for my plan by clicking the Conversations link:
This loads:
From here I can edit the Group settings including the logo, just click the current logo and the group properties pane will appear:
Change the logo as required. This might take a while to sync with Planner but once it has completed you will see the updated logo:
That is the basic plan set up and ready for the team members to start work on the tasks and join in any conversations for the tasks. On the planner hub page the project can be added as a favourite to get quick visibility of the plan status:
Planner data can be accessed and edited programmatically using the Graph API, this is currently only in Beta, see the reference link below for details:
https://graph.microsoft.io/en-us/docs/api-reference/beta/resources/task
That’s it for the Microsoft Planner overview, look out for more posts on Planner in the future.
#Office365 #Planner goes GA #taskmanagement /#workmanagement /#teamwork
June 9, 2016 at 11:25 am | Posted in Administration, Functionality, Information | Comments Off on #Office365 #Planner goes GA #taskmanagement /#workmanagement /#teamworkTags: Office365, Planner, PPM
This week marked the start of Office 365 Planner being generally available, the official post can be see here: https://blogs.office.com/2016/06/06/microsoft-planner-ready-for-showtime/
In this post I will give a quick overview of Planner then in the second post I will cover using planner with creating new plans, tasks and assignments.
Firstly, what is Planner. Microsoft Office 365 Planner is Microsoft’s new task or work management tool for managing plans and tasks with task boards using drag and drop in an intuitive, modern interface. This tool is great for managing teams with tasks or buckets of work using a simple but effective interface. For this post we will look at Planner on my Microsoft Office Demo tenant as this contains some example plans already. When accessing Planner the users see the Planner Hub:
This view shows all of the plans available in Planner. The user has the ability to tag plans as favourites to move them to the favourites section. This is done by hovering over a plan and clicking the ellipsis then clicking “Add to favorites”:
That project will then move to the favourites section, to remove a project from favourites click “Remove from favorites”:
When plans are added to the favourites section the task status is visible in a doughnut chart and a legend with a count of tasks in each status.
Clicking anywhere on the Online Marketing plan card will take you to the plan’s board:
There are different views available on the board that group the tasks differently, this can be changed in the top right corner:
The different views or groupings display the tasks either by Buckets:
Buckets are away of tagging or grouping tasks that are related in some way for example an event or work package.
Assigned to:
This view shows tasks grouped by assigned to, a useful view to see which tasks are not assigned to a team member.
Progress:
The progress grouping is useful for seeing the status of the tasks.
Back on the Buckets view it is easy to create a new bucket by clicking “Add new bucket” and type a name:
Tasks can then be added to that bucket by drag and drop or clicking the task and opening the task details view then using the bucket dropdown menu in the top left corner:
Tasks can have labels set such as the red urgent label on the Media Outlets task, this is very useful for flagging / highlighting tasks:
As well as the board views there is a Chart view, click Charts next to Boards and the chart page will load for that plan:
Notice the Task pane on the right, by default there is No grouping set, clicking on the doughnut or legend on the Status card will update the Task pane view:
In this example I clicked the Late segment on the doughnut, the Tasks pane then set a group by of Due Date and scrolls to bring the late tasks in view.
Clicking a team member in the Members views will then add a filter to the Tasks pane to show only that team members tasks:
Each Plan that gets created creates a group in Office 365, this is used for the plans collaboration. The plan can have documents that can be attached to tasks, team members can comment on tasks, the plan can have a calendar and also a OneNote notebook, this is provided by the Office 365 Groups functionality and accessible using the ellipsis menu:
To navigate back to the planner hub use the left navigation pane. You will also see a useful view here called My tasks, that will show a view for all of your own tasks:
This defaults to a progress grouping but can be grouped by plan too:
Planner also provide full notifications via emails to the team members.
There are some great features in development on the roadmap for Planner:
That’s it for this post, in the next post we will look at creating a new plan with a team and tasks. Some additional links for Planner can be seen below:
Microsoft Planner for Admins: https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Microsoft-Planner-for-admins-9652e4c7-48e3-4dad-9e71-0c783ec3d0f8
Common Support Issues for Planner: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/brismith/2016/06/06/microsoft-plannera-few-common-support-answers/ & https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/brismith/2016/06/07/microsoft-planner-another-look-as-msolsettingsand-a-couple-more-answers/
#Microsoft #Office365 Planner – #Task Management Tool #PMO #PMOT
September 23, 2015 at 8:49 am | Posted in Information | 1 CommentTags: Microsoft, Office365, Planner
A quick post to highlight a new tool that is going to be released soon called Office 365 Planner. This tool is great for organising team work with projects, tasks, assignments, documents in a visual way. For more details and screen shots see the link below:
https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/introducing-office-365-planner/
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.