Send reminders to Teams from Microsoft Lists using Power Automate

Date based reminders are a great way to add value to any business process, especially when automated. Microsoft Lists has a great email based Set a reminder feature that can be used with no IT support required. Most modern workplace users spend the majority of their time in Microsoft Teams, so to have the reminder delivered to the Teams experience makes a lot of sense. In this blog post I will show how to simply send the reminder to a Teams user using Power Automate.

I am using a customized version of the Microsoft Lists Issue Tracker template for my demo. See Microsoft Lists: Updated Issue Tracker for more info. The primary customization is the addition of a due date column. DueDate will be the reference date for the reminder.

Create a new Flow by clicking Automate > Power Automate > See your flows.

Click New flow > Scheduled cloud flow.

Provide a Flow name, I.e. “Issue tracker – Daily (Teams)”, set Starting to “10:00 AM”, Repeat every to “1”, Day and then click “Create”.

Add a new Initialize variable action and set:

Name to “varNumDays”
Type to “Integer”
Value to “30”

Add another Initialize variable action and set:

Name to “varReminderDate”
Type to “String”
Value to the following expression: addDays(utcNow(), variables('varNumDays'), 'yyyy-MM-dd')

Add new Initialize variable actions called varNumDays and varReminderDate

Add a SharePoint Get items action and set:

Site Address and List Name to you target site and list
Filter query to the following ODATA filter query: DueDate eq '@{variables('varReminderDate')} and States ne 'Complete''

Add a Apply to each action and set:

Select an output from previous steps to “value” from the previous Get items action

Add a Microsoft Teams Post message in a chat or channel action to the Apply to each container and set:

Post as to “Flow bot”
Post in to “Chat with Flow bot”
Recipient to “Person or group the issue is assigned to Email”
Message to a message of your choosing

In my example I have switched the message format to HTML (“</>”) and inserted the following code:

<p><strong>Issue tracker reminder: </strong><a href="@{items('Apply_to_each_-_Reminder')?['{Link}']}">@{items('Apply_to_each_-_Reminder')?['Title']}</a> is due in @{string(variables('varNumDays'))} days.</p>

Microsoft Teams Post message in a chat or channel

My completed Flow looks like the image below.

This is a very simple Flow to implement but its value should not be underestimated. Value comes in the form of users not having to manually look for items that are coming due, it is pushed to them. Automate the mundane! Teams, Lists and Power Automate as a platform give us further opportunities to add more value through centralization and automation.

Thanks for reading.

11 thoughts on “Send reminders to Teams from Microsoft Lists using Power Automate”

Pingback: Send an Adaptive Card to Teams from Microsoft Lists using Power Automate – Norm Young
Pingback: Use Adaptive Cards to Update Microsoft Lists from Teams using Power Automate – Norm Young
Teknojest says:

October 8, 2021 at 1:34 pm

Hi Norm

I can not see “person or group”. I am able to select “assign email”. When I allow multipler approver in list, my flow is not working.
–
he API operation ‘GetItems’ requires the property ‘body/value/0/Assignedto’ to be of type ‘Object’ but is of type ‘Array’.’
–

LikeLike

Reply
1. Norm Young says:
  
  October 8, 2021 at 4:59 pm
  
  Hi Teknojest,
  
  I would not have expected that error with the Get Items action. What step is the error occurring?
  
  NY
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
Peter D says:

March 30, 2022 at 1:41 pm

Hi Norm,

I followed your instructions and am getting a warning that says “ActionBranchingConditionNotSatisfied”. The condition just says Project End Date = Main Date (variable). Has this ever happened to you?

LikeLike

Reply
1. Norm Young says:
  
  March 31, 2022 at 10:29 pm
  
  Hi Peter,
  
  What action in the Flow is generating the error?
  
  Thanks for reading!
  
  NY
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
2. Matt says:
  
  November 30, 2022 at 9:49 pm
  
  I have a list where I track appointments with a date field with the time option enabled.
  
  Is it possible to adapt this so that a teams message is sent on the hour with each list entry thats got the date and time set within the hour.
  
  I.E. at 4 I get two messages for each entry one at 4.25 and one at 4.56
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Norm Young says:
    
    December 7, 2022 at 1:25 am
    
    Hi Matt,
    
    Yeah for sure using an OData filter query. Your query would need to evaluate the the date-time between the start and end of the hour.
    
    DateTime ge ‘Date and time’ and DateTime le ‘Date and time’
    
    Hope this helps.
    Norm
    
    LikeLike
Donna Kybartas says:

January 27, 2023 at 2:20 pm

This was so helpful thank you so much. I tried the HTML code and it wasn’t work for me when I inserted the Link to item. Is there a way to add the items in a table, instead of sending individual reminders for each work item?

The table would show the items corresponding to the timeframe (due in 3 days). Columns for Work Item, Link to Item, Priority Level

Secondly is there a way to adjust the formula to send reminders on overdue items?

Thank you,

– DK

LikeLike

Reply
1. Norm Young says:
  
  February 1, 2023 at 5:18 pm
  
  Hi Donna,
  
  Great questions! Check out this blog post: https://normyoung.ca/2020/12/21/send-a-single-reminder-for-multiple-items-using-lists-and-power-automate/
  
  Thanks for reading!
  
  NY
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Donna says:
    
    February 1, 2023 at 5:25 pm
    
    Thanks Norm! I have read that article since reaching out and have made two successful flows with reminders going to individual team members in Teams Using the Flow Bot for over due and due in 3 days and the other for 4 to 10 days out in a nice HTML table. Thank you so much for the guidance.
    
    LikeLike