Scheduling Teams Meeting Using Power Automate Flow Guide

by HubSite 365 about Tom Riha

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Unleash the power of Microsofts Power Automate to schedule Teams meetings effortlessly, saving you time and effort!

Automating Teams Meeting Scheduling with Power Automate

In a recent article, blogger Tom Riha discusses how Power Automate can be used to streamline and automate the scheduling of a Teams meeting. The post begins by identifying the common issue of allocative inefficiency in performing repetitive tasks such as meeting scheduling.

Power Automate's benefits include the automation of recurring tasks, which permits professionals to concentrate on tasks that require their specific set of skills. Tom elaborates this principle by illustrating the usefulness of Power Automate in scheduling Teams meetings.

The procedure involves building a ‘Flow’, a component of Power Automate, that requires four principal details - meeting attendees, title, description, and duration. Tom further explains that the flow can begin manually or be initiated via Teams.

The next stage involves employing the ‘Find meeting times’ feature in Power Automate, an action that ascertains time slots where all participants are available. The entered attendees, duration, and a range for the start and end time are utilized in this process. It begins the search from the following day and continues for 30 days, looking for at least one suitable time slot.

In the subsequent part, Tom details on how the attendee details, title, description and the available time slot found are used in the ‘Create a Teams meeting’ action. An essential point to remember is to convert the proposed times to your local time zone, as Outlook operates in UTC.

Lastly, there's an option to have a notification sent regarding the meeting date. As the organizer, this additional step guarantees you're informed of the scheduled meeting in more than one way.

The automation process simplifies the planning associated with meeting times, freeing up resources for more pressing matters.
However, there's a trade-off; the system will pick any free time slot during working hours. If something is not on the calendar, the software deems the user as available, regardless of the time.
A notable limitation is that this feature can only be used within the organization, as it is unable to access the calendars of external users.

This insightful piece by Tom Riha essentially provides a practical illustration of how Power Automate can enable effortless scheduling of a Teams meeting - a blend of tech-forward organizational management and improved efficiency.

Applicability of Power Automate beyond Teams

Power Automate is a well-suited tool for organizations operating on the Microsoft platform. With its ability to automate repetitive tasks, employees can apply their unique skills in areas where they are most needed. Among such tasks, meeting scheduling is widely recognized as time-consuming, and yet, a vital part of today's remote work structure. By automating this process, efficiency within an organization can be heightened. Additionally, the automation doesn't only apply to Teams meetings but extends to an array of activities, transforming Power Automate into a vital tool for improving workplace functionality.

Read the full article How to schedule Teams meeting with Power Automate flow

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Learn about How to schedule Teams meeting with Power Automate flow

Power Automate, a tool offered by Microsoft, can help manage some of your routine tasks such as scheduling meetings, reducing manual labor and saving valuable time. This post tutorial will explain how to use Power Automate to schedule a meeting with ease, without needing your direct intervention.

The process of automation using Power Automate requires four critical pieces of information: the attendees, title, description, and duration of the meeting. The automation is initiated using a manually triggered flow which can be started even via mobile phone applications. Alternatively, this flow can also be initiated from Microsoft's collaboration platform, but that discussion will be for another time.

To find a suitable time slot for the meeting, Power Automate has a feature 'Find meeting times'. Using this feature, Power Automate will analyse time slots where all attendees are free. The Attendees input acts as 'Required attendees', Duration sets the meeting duration, while expressions define the Start time and End time range. This feature will look for the first available slot within a specified timeframe, say, within the next 30 days.

Start time parameter: startOfDay(addDays(utcNow(),1))
End time parameter: addDays(utcNow(),30)

Once a free-time slot has been found, we move on to schedule a meeting using 'Create a collaborative platform meeting' feature. The input parameters required here are the Title (which becomes the meeting Subject), Description (which turns into the meeting Message), and Attendees (who are taken as Required attendees).

Yet we need to handle a tricky part here - The Start and End time. As Outlook maintains all dates and times in UTC time zone, the proposed times need to be converted into your local time zone before being entered. The expressions used for this conversion are:

For Start time: ConvertTimeZone(first(outputs('Find_meeting_times_(V2)')?['body/meetingTimeSuggestions'])?['meetingTimeSlot/start/dateTime'], 'UTC', 'Central European Standard Time')
For End time: ConvertTimeZone(first(outputs('Find_meeting_times_(V2)')?['body/meetingTimeSuggestions'])?['meetingTimeSlot/end/dateTime'], 'UTC', 'Central European Standard Time')

The final step is notifying yourself about the scheduled meeting date. As an organizer, the meeting information appears in your calendar but doesn't show any explicit invitation. If you like to be notified in a different way, you'll need to set it up separately.

In conclusion, Power Automate is a flexible tool that can take over even the smallest tasks like scheduling a collaborative platform meeting, saving you time and eliminating the hassle of planning. However, it's worth mentioning that Power Automate picks up any free time slot within user's working hours. If an event is not explicitly blocked in the calendar, it considers that time available - even during lunch breaks. Additionally, this scheduling automation can only be used within your organization as it lacks the ability to look up calendars of external users.

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