Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hello,

I’m trying to find out if the following scenario could be done with Power Automate / Power Platform.

In our company, we use an external ERP called OpenProd for official project and production tracking. However, we would like to use Microsoft Planner Premium as a simpler interface for users to manage their tasks and enter the time they have spent on them.

The main goal is to avoid double entry. Today, users would have to enter their worked hours both in Planner and in OpenProd, which would be time-consuming and could lead to mistakes.

What I would like to do is this: when a user enters or updates worked hours on a Planner task, for example 4 hours completed on a task planned for 11 hours, Power Automate would retrieve that information and send it automatically to the related project, job, work order, operation, or task in OpenProd.

I understand that detecting this kind of update directly in Planner Premium may not be possible, so I’m also considering a scheduled flow that would run every day at 8:00 PM, check the Planner tasks, compare the worked hours with what has already been synchronized, and then send only the new or updated hours to OpenProd.

If anyone has already worked on a similar integration between Planner Premium, Power Automate, Dataverse, and an external ERP, I would really appreciate your advice or feedback.

Thank you.

Hi,

Yes, this type of integration is definitely possible, but the approach depends on what integration options OpenProd provides.

A common architecture would look like this:

Store a mapping between the Planner task and the corresponding OpenProd project/work order (for example in Dataverse or a SharePoint list).

Use a scheduled cloud flow (e.g., every evening at 8:00 PM) to retrieve the Planner tasks.

Compare the current worked hours with the last synchronized value stored in Dataverse or SharePoint.

If the value has changed, calculate the delta (new hours only) and send that to OpenProd.

Update the last synchronized value so the same hours aren't sent again.

Using a scheduled flow is a good approach because Planner doesn't currently provide a trigger specifically for changes to worked hours.

The key question is how OpenProd accepts data. If it exposes a REST API, you can use the HTTP action or a custom connector to send the updated hours. If it uses SQL, web services, or another integration mechanism, Power Automate can often connect to those as well.

A few best practices:

Store the last synchronized hours to avoid duplicate updates.

Log each synchronization attempt for auditing and troubleshooting.

Handle API failures with retries or a queue so no time entries are lost.

Validate that the Planner task is linked to a valid OpenProd record before sending updates.

Overall, your proposed scheduled synchronization pattern is one I would recommend for this scenario, especially if real-time updates are not required.

One question: Does OpenProd expose a REST API or another integration endpoint for creating/updating time entries? That will determine the best implementation approach.