Excel to Microsoft Planner - trouble generating Checklist items

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Posted on by RedHead11

Good Morning All,

I’m trying to create a flow that will populate a Microsoft Planner task from an Excel sheet – pretty simple right?

In the flow that I’ve created, I’m able to generate the basic task with all the information above the Notes section. This is done with one command so no issues there.

When I try and add the Sub Tasks (Checklist) I run into my issue.

The way that I’ve built the excel table is that the Checklist ID (1, 2, 3, …) are column headings (Checklist1, Checklist2, …). This is causing havoc with the iteration process to try and create the individual Checklist items.

Below is my flow:

Full flow from top to bottom – no detail

The Flow executes fully and will generate the main task, and the 3 checklist items. The problem however is that the titles of the checklist items are a string of the output of the concat function (in Set Variable 2), instead of the heading that the output is trying to represent.

If anyone has some expertise I could borrow, to either solve this particular problem, or just let me know of a better way to build the flow in general, I’d much appreciate the help!

Kind Regards

Categories:

Building flows

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,335 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @RedHead11

Thats because you surrounded it with Double Quotes, which makes it a string

Which tells me you may have pasted that in, versus the Expression that should have just been pasted it.

If you have put double quotes (2 pair).

Then in the middle inserted the Expression, the Expression would just be a little bubble, but you appear to have pasted the text directly because it also has the @ and it should not.

Go back, delete whats there.

Click there and when the Expression window comes up, paste the code again but do NOT the starting

@{ or the ending }

Hit ok and save it

Once its a pink bubble or whatever color it is add double quotes around that

If I have helped you, I would really appreciate if you please Mark my answer as Resolved/Answered, and give it a thumbs up, so it can help others

Cheers

Thank You
Michael Gernaey MCT | MCSE | MCP | Self-Contractor| Ex-Microsoft
https://gernaeysoftware.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgernaey

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RedHead11 6 on at

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Hi @FLMike,

I'm assuming you mean like so

This gives me the same result, where (I suspect) the output of Compose 2 is a string, so is assumed to be surrounded by double quotes

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NathanAlvares24 1,714 Moderator on at

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Hi @RedHead11 !

Please remove what is marked in red box from your expression:

from the starting "@{" and from the ending of that dynamic content "}"

This is what @FLMike has requested you to do the same. Then run your flow and see.

I hope this helps.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,335 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @RedHead11

As I said in my post delete the {@ and }

If you did that it would have worked.

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RedHead11 6 on at

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Hi @FLMike,

Apologies, I didn't read your reply thoroughly.

I've removed the leading @{ and trailing } from my concat function but I get the following output instead:

I suspect that both Compose functions are adding the leading and trailing double quotes because the initial input (Set Variable 2) is a string, and therefor must be surrounded in double quotes. I'm honestly not sure if Compose 2 is even necessary because it doesn't seem to change anything if i remove it.

I think what is needed is a step after Set Variable 2 and before Compose where the string "@{triggerBody()?['entity']?['Checklist1_Formatted']}" can actually resolve to the cell contents that it is referencing.

Perhaps using the original concat function is the wrong way to go if it is going to force the output to always be a string type, instead of allowing the variable to resolve as it would if i manually selected it from the dynamic content dropdown.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,335 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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hi @RedHead11

Let's start again because you are changing from your original ask. You original ask was why do I see the WORDS of the expression versus the output, which I explained what the problem was.

I have no idea why you have multiple Composes etc that wasn't the issue. I gave you the fix for the issue. If you were ALSO doing something else which turned it into a string, then that is a new problem.

But as its getting too much time spent I will have to bounce. I cannot see the whole expression so unfortunately it doesn't help. I cannot see what the other expressions are because they aren't shared.

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