This blog post is inspired by Ayca Bas’s excellent blog
post
on this subject using Azure Logic Apps instead of Power Automate
Introduction
Microsoft To Do is a great tool for allowing you to keep lists of tasks
across your personal and work life. This could be something as simple as
a shopping list or a project or anything that can be split down into
individual tasks.
Whilst you can set reminders against tasks in To Do, wouldn’t it be
awesome to have these surface outside of the To Do app too? Before we
start, make sure you have some pending tasks on your Tasks list in
To Do!
In this article, we will go over how we can have Power Automate send
your outstanding tasks daily into Microsoft Teams. To achieve this, we
will undertake the following:
Create a Power Automate Custom Connector to interface with the
Microsoft Graph To Do APIs
Create a Power Automate Flow to automate sending tasks to Microsoft
Teams using the Microsoft Teams Flow Bot
Microsoft Graph To Do APIs in Graph Explorer
To understand how the Microsoft Graph To Do API queries work, let’s use
Microsoft Graph
Explorer to make
a query against your own data. The first task is to select Sign in to
Graph Explorer. Microsoft Graph Explorer is a great web-based tool for
using Microsoft Graph without having to create anything yourself. If you
want to test something will work (before you create your app) or try out
a new command, this is the quickest and easiest way to do so.
Once signed in, under the Getting Started section of Sample
queries run the my To Do task lists query. This should run the
query of https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/todo/lists and return
your task lists.
If the task lists response contains multiple task lists, don’t worry,
just choose the list with the name Tasks
Based on my response above, my query would be
https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/todo/lists/AQMkAGYxYjhlNDIxLTRlN2YtNGMwNi1hYzg2LTJmMzVkMDYxYzQ1NQAALgAAA_Q4rkw0lJdNrFQfLSNpWB8BAA_o0Quzv4FCs60F7sB5NAAAAwESAAAA/tasks
Ensure you set the request type to GET and the version to v1.0
Take a copy of your request address as we will need that later on.
Register an app in Azure Active Directory
To be able to read your To Do task data using Microsoft Graph, we will
need to grant an Azure AD application permission to access it.
This app registration can be used for more than one user, should you
wish for multiple users to use this solution, the same registration
can be used for each Power Automate Flow
Registration
First, go to Azure Active Directory in the Azure
Portal. Under App registrations select
New registration from the top menu.
Give the app an arbitrary Name e.g. To Do_PowerAutomate, leave
Supported account types and Redirect URI with the default
values. Select Register to create the app.
With the app created, take note of the Application (client) ID as
this will be needed later.
Create a secret
Next, we need to create a secret under Certificates and secrets on
the left-hand menu. To create a secret, select New client secret and
give the secret a Description and when it Expires.
Before the next step, take a copy of the Value of the secret and
store it securely somewhere. This has to be copied now as once we move
away the secret value will be hidden.
Assign Microsoft Graph permissions
Finally, we need to assign Microsoft Graph To Do permissions to our app.
This allows our app to query To Do APIs in Microsoft Graph as we did in
Microsoft Graph Explorer earlier.
Under API permissions on the left-hand menu, select Add a
permission.
Select Microsoft Graph as the Microsoft API and Delegated
permissions. Search for Tasks and choose the Tasks.Read permission
and select Add permissions.
You should now see Tasks.Read under Configured permissions.
Tasks.Read is one of many different API permissions in Graph.
Helpfully, there is a full breakdown of the different Microsoft Graph
PermissionsThat is all we need to do here for now, but there is one final step to
be done, later on, so leave the page open in your browser.
Create Power Automate Custom Connector
Moving over to Power Automate, we need to
create a Custom Connector. A Custom Connector is a way of interfacing
with APIs in specific ways, in our case - talking to Microsoft Graph and
obtaining our list of tasks.
To create a Custom Connector, go to Data > Custom connectors on the
left-hand menu in Power Automate. Here, select New custom connector
and Create from blank
**
Give your connector an arbitrary Connector name e.g. To
Do_Connector and choose Continue
**
For the first step, we need to specify the Host as
graph.microsoft.com and select Security to move on to the next
step.
For security, set as follows:
Authentication type: OAuth 2.0
Identity Provider: Azure Active Directory
Client id: Application (client) ID we noted down when
creating the Azure AD app
Client secret: Client secret we noted down when creating the
Azure AD app
Everything else can be left as it is
Select Definition to move on to the next step.
mage-alt=“PA4.png” style=“width: 888px;”}
We now need to create an Action. An Action is an operation that
our connector will perform when asked. In our case, our connector will
retrieve our To Do tasks for us.
Select New action and provide the action with the following:
Summary: A summary of what the action is doing e.g. Get To Do
tasks
Description: A more in-depth description on what the action is
doing e.g. Get To Do tasks for signed-in user
Operation ID: Unique identifier of the action. Use
GetToDoTasks
Visibility: Important
Under the Request section, we need to provide it with sample data so
the action understands what the data from Microsoft Graph will look
like. Choose Import from sample and provide the following:
Finally, select Create connector at the top right. Once saved, go to
the Security section and copy the Redirect URI
**
If we now briefly head back to the Azure AD App with the Redirect
URI. Under Authentication, select Add a platform and paste the
Redirect URI you copied into the Redirect URIs text box. Select
Configure to add it.
Create Power Automate Flow
Now we are going to tie everything together with a Power Automate Flow.
A Flow is essentially a no/low code way to script something. In our
case, we are scripting retrieving our To Do tasks and sending them into
Microsoft Teams.
To do this, head back the Power Automate
and select Create from the left-hand menu and choose Scheduled
cloud flow.
By sheduling this flow trigger type, it can be scheduled to run as
frequently as you like.
Give your flow a Name and set a Repeat every of 1 Day. Once
done, select Create
**As this is a Flow, the logic will behave as a flow chart would. Under
the Recurrance trigger, we need to add some additional steps to the
Flow.
To start, select New step and here we need to find the action we
created. The quickest way is to change the type to Custom and then
select it under Actions.
Next, you need to sign in to your account to get your tasks.
As mentioned earlier, this can be used in multiple flows, allowing a
whole team to use the connector to get their own tasks
During the sign-in process, you will need to consent the app to read
your task lists.
Before we go any further, select Save at the top of the page and
then go back to My flows. Hover over the Flow you created and choose
Run.
Hopefully, it was successful and you can see the result in the Flow
Runs Page.
Looking at the body of the Output there is some data (which is
the same as what was shown in Graph Explorer earlier). Copy the body
output and then select Edit at the top of the page to finish off the
last bits of the Flow.
The body output is great in JSON format, but we need to be able to split
it down into smaller chunks (tasks). To do this, we need to be able to
parse (read) the JSON output. Add a Parse JSON step and set the
Content as Body. To create a Schema choose Generate from
sample.
Paste in the body output from earlier and select Done.
The next step we need to add is Initialize variable. We need to
create an Array. An array is a collection of values or objects. In our
case, ours is a collection of tasks. Give the variable the name of
Tasks and set the type to Array.
After creating the Tasks array, we need to populate it with the tasks.
This is achieved by adding an Apply to each step. A Apply to
each is a type of loop. In our case, it will loop through all the
tasks in our body JSON we parsed earlier and pick out the values for
each task.
Start by adding an Apply to each loop and selecting value output
from Parse JSON
Next, within the Apply to each step, Add an action and choose
Compose. This will take a specific value from the task. Under
inputs, choose title under Parse JSON.
The next step we need to add in the loop is an Append to array
variable. We will use this to add the task title to the Tasks
array we created earlier. Set the Value to the Outputs of
Compose.
Now we should have a list of tasks ready to use. The next step is to
send these to us in Teams. To do this, we need to add Post a choice of
options as the Flow bot to a user, making sure this is added after the
Apply to each and not inside it.
Before entering any details, change the options type to an array by
clicking the T icon.
Now, add the following:
Options: Tasks variable
Recipient: The same account you signed in to the Flow with
Message: Something like Hey, here are your outstanding tasks
for today
Headline: Something like Your tasks for the day
IsAlert: Yes - This makes it so you are notified of the
message in Teams
If you were to run the Flow now, you will see the list of tasks appear
in Teams. However, choosing any of the tasks doesn’t do anything.
Back in the Flow, we need to fix it so when an option (task) is chosen,
we do something with it. Add another Apply to each and like the
previous loop, select value output from Parse JSON.
Within this Apply to each step, Add an action and choose
Condition. A Condition is a way to verifying a value is what we
want/don’t want. In our scenario, we are looping through tasks and
looking for the one that matches what the user selected in Teams. To do
this set the first value as selectedOption under Post a choice...
and the second value is title under Parse JSON.
We now need to act upon when the condition is met (the task equals the
chosen option in Teams). Under If yes, add Post message as the
Flow bot to a user. Complete it as follows:
Recipient: The same account you signed in to the Flow with
**Message**: A message containing the details of the task (see
image)
Headline: Title from Parse JSON
IsAlert: Yes - This makes it so you are notified of the
message in Teams
Leave If no blank.
Finishing up
If you now run the Flow it should send you a message with your tasks.
Choosing a task will then return details on that task.
Congratulations, you have now managed to create an Azure AD application,
talk to Microsoft Graph, pass that into Power Automate and on to Teams!
Lee Ford
