Tell AtBot to add a new task to your Plan in Microsoft Planner using our new AtBot template. Simply set up the Flow with the destination Plan and Bucket and you’re off!
Note: some screenshots reference AtBot’s old name, Bizzy. Functionality is identical.
Creating the Flow
1. Log in to office.com with your user name and password and add AtBot to Teams if you haven’t already.
2. Browse to the AtBot template to create a task in Planner.
3. Click Continue at the bottom of the screen.
4. On the Power Automate editor screen, select the Plan name and associated Bucket where you want your tasks to be saved.
This Power Automate template can only save tasks to one Bucket in One Plan. Select the Plan from the Plan Id drop-down menu (which displays all Plans you have access to) and select the Bucket from the Bucket Id drop-down menu. You can always change this later if you’d like.
We suggest using the Plan you use most, and maybe a catch-all Bucket that you can categorize later. Update your Plan in the Flow as you move through different ones in your work life. On the other hand, you could create a Plan specifically for recording these tasks, meant for categorizing later.
5. Click Save flow.
Test it out
Jump into MS Teams and start a private chat with AtBot. Tell him “new task” to test out the new Flow. (Or say “help” and he’ll tell you the keywords you can use to kick off these processes.)
He should ask you the name of the task then provide a link to the new task once it’s created.
Check out Planner and you’ll see the task added in your Not Started column. From there you can add more detail, re-categorize it, or change its status.
Wait, what’s Planner?
A very nice addition to the Office 365 app lineup in June 2016 was Planner, a simple-but-powerful task management app. Which may not sound so impressive because, hey, we’ve already got Outlook Tasks and Microsoft Project, right? Not quite.
Planner fills the void between the two: powerful enough to do real-world project management — which Outlook Tasks can’t — but simple enough that you don’t need to take two weeks off for formal training — like you likely would for the very complex MS Project. Plus, Planner now integrates with Project and you can use Power Automate to add Planner tasks to Outlook (and vice versa).
If you’re familiar with Trello, Planner is very similar. Each Office 365 Group comes with a Plan, and each Plan you create comes with an Office 365 Group; there’s an easy way to visualize this.
With Planner, you create tasks, assign them to your teammates, group them by buckets, and provide status updates. Good stuff. We’re seeing a lot of adoption by organizations worldwide.
Why use AtBot with Planner?
How do you normally access Planner? You can:
- Find your way to Planner from Office 365 in your browser;
- Pop open the Planner mobile app on your phone or tablet;
- Jump through the Planner tab in an Outlook Group; or
- Add Planner as a tab in Microsoft Teams.
But why search out Planner when you need to add a quick task to your own Plan? Just use AtBot. In fact, you can even use your phone to orally tell AtBot to add the task using standard speech-to-text technology built into your phone.
Once again, AtBot is the quick way to get things done from one central place.
Remember, this is just the start
Power Automate is super powerful and you can take this relatively simple template and make it your own. Why not have AtBot request more information so the task is more detailed?
For example, by default, this Power Automate template sets all tasks as due five days from when they’re created. You can change this to a different number of days out if you’d like.
Click Edit at the bottom of the Planner step, click the purple function entry in the Due Date Time field, change the number of days out to your preference, and click Update. You can always change this later on if you’d like.
You could also amend this Flow to have AtBot ask you for a due date or assignee, which is a good opportunity to learn more of the ins and outs of Power Automate.
And there you have it. AtBot now has a new Skill and is ready to help you set and get your tasks done.
AtBot brings AI within reach
AtBot is the premiere bot-as-a-service solution for the Microsoft cloud. Built completely within Azure, AtBot is your out-of-the-box, easy-to-configure bot for Teams, SharePoint, or the web. Teach AtBot tasks using Power Automate, make him your corporate source of knowledge with QnA Maker, help him understand almost anything your colleagues could ask thanks to LUIS, and manage his features with the AtBot Admin Portal. Get going with AtBot Free or start your free trial of AtBot Premium today.
