From Excel to Outlook - create task or event

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Posted on by haPpy85

Hello,

the idea is:

An exported Excel file as in the example should be read out with regard to the project no. and the name in cell A1, the names of the milestones in column A and cells A5 to the last entry and the corresponding data in column F.

This data should be converted into events in Outlook with a due date from Excel and a reminder of 4 weeks before OR into a task with a due date and reminder 4 weeks before (Outlook or MS TO-DO). The trigger is supposed to be a manual activation.

Since I also want to offer the workflow to colleagues and not everyone works with the tasks from Outlook/TO-DO, I would prefer to create outlook events.

I started with PA Desktop and was very confident to build the flow, but was stopped due to limited action availability (premium is not available in my organisation, so no possibility of creating events or tasks with outlook), so I switched to the web-based PowerAutomate. I tried to recreate it, but failed miserably.

A basic question: Is PowerAutomate the right tool for this at all, alternatively I could use KNIME, but I also have relatively little experience with it.

I don't want a complete solution here, but help with which actions make sense. Thanks in advance for every hint.

Greeting

Categories:

Building flows

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Andrew_J 1,962 Moderator on at

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@haPpy85,

All of this is possible, but I would stay away from excel as the source mainaly becasue I do not use it and prefer a sharepoint list.

I suggest the SP list needs a start and end date and time, plus a descripton of the event or task, you might like a drop down to select if it is a task or event. Add an email address column to if you need to select the destination at this stage.

Then once the data is in use branching to process on the drop down of task or event. Then process the dynamic data for each. Send to the group or person from the sharepoint list.

Maybe the above is a little simplistic but If you can get all the above in place and test it I would be happy to assit further.

Regards,

Andrew

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haPpy85 2 on at

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Hello Andrew,

thank you for your response.

After yesterday's numerous further attempts - I'm just starting with Power Automate - I also considered continuing to edit the Excel manually in order to simplify the processing in PA, but in the end decided against it, because 1. this misses the point of automation and 2. the practical benefit will not be there, if my colleagues have to edit the Excel manually beforehand.
The Excel file is exported from a project management tool and has the form I have shown in the attachment. And the idea should remain that colleagues save/load the file into their OneDrive, run the PA flow and use it to create reminders for the milestones. It can't get any more complicated, otherwise the benefit will be lost or colleagues with a very simple relationship with MS Office won't even try.

Today I'm going to try again and post my general idea of the workflow here.

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