Power Automate / Flow - Automate task creation and deadline reminders Tutorial

Ready to take your team productivity to the next level? Discover how to automate task creation and deadline reminders with Power Automate! In this video, you'll learn to streamline teamwork by creating planner tasks, notifying of upcoming deadlines, and ensuring no tasks slip through the cracks. Boost your efficiency with these low-code solutions today! Tags: power automate - flow, advanced, low code.

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Available in Microsoft365

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by automating repetitive tasks.

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This module presents three essential automations

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creating a planner task for Microsoft List,

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reminding of upcoming deadlines,

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and reporting blocked tasks to managers.

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Let's explore these automations together that will save you valuable time.

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Let's start with the most structuring automation,

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the automatic creation of team tasks.

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In Power Automate,

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create a new flow with the trigger when an

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item is created or modified on your Microsoft list.

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Add a condition to check the status of the item,

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for example,

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in progress,

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then add the action to create a task from the planner connector.

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Fill in the team plan,

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the bucket,

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the task title,

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the due date,

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and assign the task to a user

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to maintain traceability.

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Add the action to update an item in list

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to record the ID in the link of the planner task in the list record,

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and with the action post a message in the team's channel

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to notify the team of the task creation.

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Once your tasks are created in planner,

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it becomes essential not to let deadlines go unnoticed.

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We will build an automated flow that monitors at-risk tasks daily

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and alerts the managers at the right time.

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We start by adding a recurrence trigger so that the

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automation launches automatically each day at a set time.

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This scheduled trigger ensures regular monitoring

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of deadlines without manual intervention.

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Set the frequency to days.

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Specify the desired execution time

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as well as your team's time zone.

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The action list tasks from the planner connector

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retrieves all the tasks from the relevant plan.

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This action returns all the necessary metadata,

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title,

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due date,

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task ID,

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and information about the assigned people.

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We initialize an array type variable named assignment

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to store the names of the people responsible for each task.

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Choosing an array variable is essential because

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a planner task can have multiple people assigned

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and this type of variable can store multiple values.

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We leave it empty for now

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as it will be filled later for each eligible task.

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We now add our main condition.

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If today's date plus 2 days is equal to the task due date,

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then we trigger the reminder.

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This comparison uses Power FX formulas

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to normalize the dates and ensure a reliable comparison.

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We will not go into detail about these formulas in this module,

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but be aware that dedicated courses on Power Automate

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and Power FX are available on the platform to explore this concept further.

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As soon as we use the list task action that returns multiple items,

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Power Automate automatically creates and apply to each loop to go through

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and test all the existing tasks in this plan.

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Each task is individually evaluated by the

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condition to determine if it meets the day

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plus 2 criterion.

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If the condition test is true,

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we use the get a task action

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to retrieve the full details of this task from its ID.

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This step is necessary because it provides enriched information,

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including the precise list of assigned users

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and the plan ID that we will use to build links and resolve names.

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The action get a task only returns the IDs of the assigned users,

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which is not readable in a message.

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Therefore,

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we need to add a loop on these IDs

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and for each one

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use the action get user profile.

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This action takes the user ID as a parameter

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and returns the full name

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as well as the email address of the assigned person or persons.

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At each iteration of the loop on the assignees,

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we use the action appended to array variable to store the retrieved name

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in the assignment variable initialized at the beginning of the flow.

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This array variable can thus accumulate several names if

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multiple people are responsible for the same task.

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Since the attribution variable can contain multiple elements,

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we use the joint action to gather all these names into a single readable text.

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Here we use a comma followed by a space as a separator

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which produces a result like Michael Anderson,

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Jessica Thompson,

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David Miller.

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This final string is ready to be inserted into the notification message.

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Finally,

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we post a message in the target team channel

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using the action post the message in a conversation.

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We feed this message with the dynamic elements configured earlier

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so that they are personalized and informative.

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The names of the responsible persons retrieved and joined,

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the task title,

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the formatted due date,

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the direct link to the task and planner for quick access.

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This message remains factual and targeted,

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thus avoiding overwhelming the team with excessive reminders.

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Every day at the scheduled time,

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the flow automatically starts and scans all the tasks in the planner plan.

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When it detects a task with a due date exactly 2 days away,

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it sends a clear and actionable notification in the chosen team's channel,

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allowing those responsible to prioritize their work and meet deadlines.

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This automation ensures that no important deadline goes unnoticed

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while maintaining effective communication within the team.

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You now have two powerful and complementary automations.

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The first automatically creates planner tasks

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from a list with complete traceability,

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while the second monitors deadlines daily and alerts managers at the right time.

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Together these workflows eliminate manual re-entry,

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reduce oversights,

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and maintain smooth coordination between lists,

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planner,

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and teams.

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But what to do when a task gets stuck and requires escalation to decision makers.

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That's precisely what we will address in the next tutorial

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where we will build an automation

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dedicated to detecting and escalating blockages.

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Your team will then be able to focus on the essentials,

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moving projects forward without friction.

Mandarine AI: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

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