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As a long-time user of Microsoft Planner, I've come to rely on its features daily for efficient task and project management. Amidst its array of tools, one feature that often slips under the radar, even with the revamped Planner, is the labeling function. Microsoft describes labels as a way to swiftly and visually identify commonalities among tasks—be it requirements, locations, dependencies, or time constraints. However, as you will be aware if use Planner, labels primarily serve as static visual aids which for me feels like a wasted opportunity.
Yet, envision a scenario where adding labels to tasks triggers actions. What kind of actions, though? I pondered over various possibilities, tinkering with ideas ranging from generating checklist items to automating emailing comments for status updates. Yet, none seemed to justify leveraging labels, especially considering the abundance of options already available adjacent to the labelling function.
Then, a breakthrough moment struck me...
I'm Matthew James Davis from No More Bad Mondays, and today, we delve into the realm of "Automating Your Microsoft Planner Labels".
The Concept
Frequently, I find myself immersed in plans with numerous members and tasks, often involving collaboration among multiple individuals within the same department. Take, for instance, a recent project involving 16 members of a marketing team—assigning tasks to each individual becomes a daunting endeavor. So, why not utilise some of those colour labels to denote department names, such as "Marketing," "Finance," or "Procurement"? Then, when one of these labels is applied, it automatically assigns the entire team or selected members. By imbuing labels with purpose and leveraging Microsoft Power Automate, we can streamline processes and reclaim valuable time.
How it works
I decided to base my Power Automate on the trigger of a new task creation, though there are other options such as recurring every hour or day, they felt too slow and less immediate. While a new task serves as the trigger, it is set to double-check all older tasks and auto-update if required, serving as a safety net. I've added a second factor to the conditions as well (The first being checking if the relevant label is being used). The second factor is, what if you've already assigned a few people from marketing, so you've rightly used the Marketing label (pink in our example), but that auto-adds others you'd normally want to add but on this occasion don't. My condition to stop the label updating assigned staff members if members are already assigned addresses this issue.
After that, it's smooth sailing. Just multiple conditions: if pink, assign; if not pink, check if pear; if not pear, check if... it could go on for a while but once you've done it, you're set!
Just ensure you add all the relevant email addresses for the relevant colour.
Downloading the solution
We've created the solution, so why not hand it over to you fine people on Linkedin? To download simply click the link below, and as always if we can support you in anyway please do get in touch with us either here on Linkedin or over at www.nomorebadmondays.com
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