Project Tracker: Microsoft Teams & SharePoint

Want to create one source of truth for an entire project or initiative of projects using only standard Office365 & Power Platform applications?
This template set-up combines a project log, kanban board, GANTT chart, RACI (role & workload tracking), and project update notifications system into one SharePoint list that is also embedded in a Teams channel.
It does not require the hassle of provisioning premium or other additional services like MS Project.
It is a mobile-device accessible set-up.
It is very Agile project management friendly.
***UPDATE: Microsoft has recently removed many capabilities for the Groups connector that I was using to automatically add the Kanban view to the Teams channel. The main post on the download page / Community thread now includes a piece with screenshots & instructions on how to manually add the Kanban view to Teams without the Groups connector. In short, it requires opening the SP list to the Kanban view in SP, copying the url of the page on that view, going to the Teams channel, adding a tab, selecting the website type tab, & pasting the url in the new website tab pop-up menu (much like adding the GANTT view).
Template thread with set-up instructions & files: powerusers.mic...
Microsoft started renovating their community site. They didn't transfer the download files from the old site, & I can't manually re-upload any of the download files there at the moment. I'm waiting on a solution from their support team.
In the meantime, here is a Google drive link to a zip folder with solution imports for most of my projects: drive.google.c...
Agile goal levels: www.aha.io/roa....
SharePoint mobile app downloads...
Apple App Store SharePoint App:
apps.apple.com...
Google App Store SharePoint App:
play.google.co...
Venmo
venmo.com/u/Ty...
PayPal
www.paypal.com...
Buy Me a Coffee
www.buymeacoff...
Thanks for any feedback,
And reach out on LinkedIn ( / kolota ) if you want to hire me to consult or build more custom Microsoft solutions for you.

[@derramful]

I needed to know this for my job. I watched it a couple times and strangely enough I think this could be tagged as ASMR. It's very relaxing to listen to. Instructional ASMR, just add in light clicks of the mouse and tapping of the keyboard.

[@tylerkolota]

I didn’t think of that, I’ll have to upgrade my mic for any of those ASMR listeners 😅

[@derramful]

Yes! when all of a sudden all the whisperers and tarot readers are experts at automating projects, we'll know where it came from! @@tylerkolota

[@Yanakkhan254]

This is what I was searching for. Thank You for your efforts

[@powerbusinessdocconsulting9555]

Your explanation and solution is very useful. Thanks for helping people to do things more efficient.

[@tylerkolota]

Thank you!

[@vladinoo]

This is great! So much value! Thank you very much!

[@tylerkolota]

Thank you, I’m glad it’s helpful!

[@MrCheddah13]

This is really amazing and I know it was posted awhile ago, is there a way to have the task thats created be tied to a project and not just a projectareas? Almost as if you were able to open the project card, add a task inside of it and it show up in the kanban board of tasks?

[@tylerkolota]

@@MrCheddah13 Are you saying like have a Kanban board of projects & then have various sub-Kanban boards for each project with all their tasks? I’d think there’s probably a way to do that by creating the sub-Kanbans where each item has a Lookup column to items in the main projects Kanban. Or if you still want all the items in the same Kanban, then it should be a similar set-up to the ParentGoals lookup column where the lookup is to all the items in the same Kanban board, so you would just create a ParentProject lookup column & in each task select the parent project card in that ParentProject column.

[@MrCheddah13]

@@tylerkolota Thank you for the response Tyler, I think what I meant was the second half of your explanation. For example my current department is utilizing Notion's Project management template so I have a "page" that shows a list of all the projects (20+) with their varying properties as needed and it is its own database. On separate pages you have all of the tasks everyone is assigned too, each person has their own page, and the database of tasks is all one database separate from the projects database, the pages are just filtered per person. One of the properties inside the tasks is the option to select which project it belongs too. The way Notion handles this is by using a "relation" property and allows you to select the Project database to find the list of projects. While Notion has worked great, there is a separated half of our department that uses their own system for task tracking and I have been asked to combine the two departments using Sharepoint. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!

[@tylerkolota]

@@MrCheddah13 Yeah so you would have all the projects & tasks on the same board & use a lookup column to link each task to their respective project. Then you’d probably want to add something, maybe a choice column with Praject or Task as options & set different SharePoint views to filter to only Project items or only Task items. And then people could also filter the Task view to only items where they are listed as Accountable or Responsible (or whatever roles/assignments you plan to use).

[@MrCheddah13]

@@tylerkolota Thats really awesome! Ill give it a try tomorrow I really appreciate your time and creating this!

[@protika22]

@tyler This is really good tool and I am enjoying working with this tool.. I just want to know how we can make the GANTT more dynamic like I need to add % completion and different color bars for better understanding the risk. Can you please suggest?

[@tylerkolota]

For completion % you will want to add a number column for PercentComplete. Then go to list setting, go to the GANTT view, & insert that new PercentComplete column as the Percent Complete Gantt Column. I have not seen any way to do color coding. But you can change what the different sections are grouped by.

[@tobiabiola]

Hi Tyler, this was very helpful. Is there a way to add branching to the questions. E.g first question (Name is Project Type) is marked as mandatory, if you select "New Project" then it opens unique questions assigned to the New Project Option, if you select "Existing Project, then it opens unique questions assigned to the "Existing Project Option"

[@tylerkolota]

Sure as long as you have a SharePoint group site you can run the program to create everything, then delete the Teams channel it automatically creates.

[@tylerkolota]

Branching questions would require creating your own custom Power Apps form for the list, a lot more effort. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/canvas-apps/customize-list-form

[@Mateusz0x]

Great video! I have a question, as I’m fairly new to this, is it possible to create sub goals or implement a similar solution?

[@tylerkolota]

The set-up already has “sub goals” that can link to their larger goals. It’s just in the Agile terminology of Theme, Epic, Story

[@Mateusz0x]

Ok, but how about a checklist? Would that be a possible thing to implement inside a goal?

[@tylerkolota]

@@Mateusz0x Without going through numerous more complicated customizations using custom Power Apps forms, the only suggestion I have thus-far is to create checklists in the Notes section. I show an example of this with brackets & Xs here: powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Project-Tracker-SharePoint-and-Teams/m-p/1788463/highlight/true#M934

[@Mateusz0x]

@@tylerkolota I don’t think that will be the best solution for me, but thanks so much for the advice!

[@jaysonwoodard4782]

Can you add a filter for specific project. In my case a part number?

[@tylerkolota]

Like filter to only items in one ProjectArea, yes. Or maybe you mean something like all the Stories related to a single Epic, in which case you would have to mark the ParentGoal of each story as the given Epic, then you could filter to items with that given ParentGoal.

[@ElGranSakacaca]

Best thing on my part is to paint a picture of what I have and what I want to do. I have a small business and use office365, so I have teams, office, sharepoint, planner and all the apps that come with the service. I have created about 6 sharepoints/teams to each area of the company, finance, accounting, marketing, sales, laboratory, production plant, things like that, each teams, which has a sharepoint, have a general default channel and the idea is to create channels for each project on each team. So I'll have several teams/sharepoints with several channels, each channel a project except the general channel which will be used to copy documents and other stuff. So my question is, for example, if I implement this project tracker on, lets say, team production plant, in a channel that is called project A, will I have to do everything again on project B, and on other new projects on other teams/sharepoints? If not, what can I reuse of the project tracker on other new projects and what will I have to upload again in power automate? Please let me know if this was clearer. Thanks again. great video.

[@tylerkolota]

-If you want a separate list for each channel, yes the easiest way to duplicate this is likely to reset the flow for the next channel each time & run it again. -If you are instead willing to use a single list for each team then instead of setting & running this for each channel you could instead set it & run it for each team. Then you would do some work to set each channel as an option in the Project Areas column & set the views embedded in Teams to each use a different view imposed on the list by the Project Area column being filtered to that channel value.

[@chigga76]

Absolutely brilliant in place of any other prj mgmt tool!

[@KenChiwo]

Help, I am receiving an error at 9:40 where I am receiving this error "Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'config')"

[@tylerkolota]

Is that an error when trying to initiate the flow run, or is it an error within the flow actions themselves? Feel free to post in the download thread (powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Project-Tracker-SharePoint-and-Teams/td-p/1788102) or email me at [e-mail] so you can share pictures.

[@KenChiwo]

@@tylerkolota It's an error when trying to initiate the flow run. I sent you an email.

[@chriswallace9113]

This works great but I can’t seem to get “Priority” to display on the form despite it being present in the JSON. I notice the column is configured as an integer which doesn’t appear on the list of options when creating a new column. Dump the integer Priority column and create a number Priority column?

[@chriswallace9113]

Looks like I answered my own question. Deleting the integer Priority column and adding a number Priority column did the trick.

[@tylerkolota]

@@chriswallace9113 Thanks I’ll pass that info into the community thread for anyone else.

[@tylerkolota]

Not sure if recreating the field or the field type fixed it, but I changed the field type for the template to number.

[@ElGranSakacaca]

quick question, to understand better this implementation. This has to be done once per project team or once you configure this template, you can use it to any other team or project? thanks!

[@tylerkolota]

I’d need more context to give a really specific response but… If you have multiple teams working on related projects, then there is a way to set this up with differently labeled “Project Areas”. That way you could use the same list to track the entire group of projects, but also filter a Kanban view down for each team to just their project area & let them use a link to that specific Kanban view for their Teams channel. You can use the template multiple times to set one tracker up for each team. But if you further customize the list a lot, then it may be easier to just go to the site where you want to create a new one, go to create a new list, then copy the customized list as your template. Then you would manually set up everything else from this template if you still want everything else set up in Teams & stuff. Or if you’re wondering about re-using a single instance of this template after the 1st project has completed, you could delete everything in the completed project list & rename anything as necessary. Although that will reduce any archiving ability or ability to review previous projects / records.

[@ElGranSakacaca]

@@tylerkolotaHi, I was planning on sending you a PM but I couldn't find the option. It has been ages since I send a PM on youtube. Best thing on my part is to paint a picture of what I have and what I want to do. I have a small business and use office365, so I have teams, office, sharepoint, planner and all the apps that come with the service. I have created about 6 sharepoints/teams to each area of the company, finance, accounting, marketing, sales, laboratory, production plant, things like that, each teams, which has a sharepoint, have a general default channel and the idea is to create channels for each project on each team. So I'll have several teams/sharepoints with several channels, each channel a project except the general channel which will be used to copy documents and other stuff. So my question is, for example, if I implement this project tracker on, lets say, team production plant, in a channel that is called project A, will I have to do everything again on project B, and on other new projects on other teams/sharepoints? If not, what can I reuse of the project tracker on other new projects and what will I have to upload again in power automate? Please let me know if this was clearer. Thanks again. great video.

[@ElGranSakacaca]

Hi Tyler, where you able to review my comments. thanks!

[@tylerkolota]

@@ElGranSakacaca What comments? I can only see your initial comment in this thread.

[@ElGranSakacaca]

Hi, very strange, I posted a message about 2 weeks ago, for reasons unknown to me, it won't appear on your side. This was the message: Best thing on my part is to paint a picture of what I have and what I want to do. I have a small business and use office365, so I have teams, office, sharepoint, planner and all the apps that come with the service. I have created about 6 sharepoints/teams to each area of the company, finance, accounting, marketing, sales, laboratory, production plant, things like that, each teams, which has a sharepoint, have a general default channel and the idea is to create channels for each project on each team. So I'll have several teams/sharepoints with several channels, each channel a project except the general channel which will be used to copy documents and other stuff. So my question is, for example, if I implement this project tracker on, lets say, team production plant, in a channel that is called project A, will I have to do everything again on project B, and on other new projects on other teams/sharepoints? If not, what can I reuse of the project tracker on other new projects and what will I have to upload again in power automate? Please let me know if this was clearer. Thanks again. great video.

[@marieolivieri108]

Is there an updated version of this?

[@tylerkolota]

@@marieolivieri108 I haven’t released like a V2 or anything. If you look through the steps on the download page in the forums, there was a change that removed the use of the Groups connector as that is deprecated, so now we must manually add the Kanban to the Teams page.

[@sininv1]

Is it possible to hv monthly calendar display too? Thanks

[@tylerkolota]

This is ultimately all built on a SharePoint list. So anything you can do with a list, you can add to this template: sharepointmaven.com/how-to-create-a-calendar-view-on-a-sharepoint-list/

[@Uday-u7t]

is there a way that we can import spreadsheets to projects tab?

[@tylerkolota]

Like import an Excel table into the SharePoint Kanban/Log? You can use Power Automate to List rows in the Excel table, then Create item in SharePoint with the proper field mappings.

[@aleclippe6213]

@@tylerkolota did you create project tracker? or are you just using it?

[@tylerkolota]

@@aleclippe6213I created it

[@samuelcampbell285]

Thanks a lot Tyler I have Just started getting it setup and going to demo it to the team next week. Do you know if it is possible to link the task to Outlook tasks or Microsoft To do? (i.e. it creates a to do item for the user assigned).

[@samuelcampbell285]

also just checking if you know if it is possible to change the Gantt bar color based on the status? i.e. if not started - black, completed - green etc

[@tylerkolota]

Hi Sam, You could search online for any guides on creating an Outlook / To Do Task whenever a SharePoint list item is created in Power Automate. That would allow you to create a new task whenever a new item is added to the Kanban or other boards.

[@tylerkolota]

@@samuelcampbell285 Sorry, I have not yet seen anything to adjust the formatting of the GANTT chart.

[@anchaltripathi04]

I am not able to select account for "Office 365 Groups Connection" what you did at 8:25. What could be the reason?

[@tylerkolota]

Microsoft has recently moved forward with limiting the Groups Connector capabilities. I have changed out the template to remove the Groups connector & added to the main post in the community thread with instructions on how to manually add the kanban view to Teams.

[@anchaltripathi04]

@@tylerkolota thank you for prompt response. In addition, now when I am trying to set up the dashboard, I do not see Example Project Tracker in my list (time 32.02). I selected Project Tracker which was available and getting error : Project Tracker - OLE DB or ODBC error: [Expression.Error] The column 'ID' of the table wasn't found. What should I do?

[@tylerkolota]

@@anchaltripathi04 Please share some screenshots of the error & set-up either on the community thread or via my email [e-mail]

[@bifftopher]

For some reason my teams won't connect to the list. I have been successful twice, the only change this time is I changed the name to the list in the power automate workflow... but now it won't show up.

[@tylerkolota]

Have you tried going to the main/kanban view of the list, copying the URL, & pasting it into a new Teams Website tab?

[@prasetyoibrahim6860]

Hai, Thank you for your video, but my flow always failed on SP HTTP List Add On Navigation with "Bad Gateway", How can I fix this, please?

[@tylerkolota]

That sounds like the action that automatically adds the list to the navigation bar. You should be able to remove that action & just manually go to the Site Contents of the SharePoint site you are using, find the list created, & add it to the navigation bar from there.

[@PritishTogare]

Great video for beginners. I cant find the zip file on the link though. plz help

[@tylerkolota]

Microsoft started renovating their community site, they didn't transfer the upload files from the old site, & I can't manually re-upload any of the download files there at the moment. I'm waiting on a solution from their support team. In the meantime, here is a Google drive link to a zip folder with solution imports for most of my projects: drive.google.com/file/d/1-hZmu2-QdEl7l95Y3NdZ1jn8sYdaK2kD/view?usp=sharing

[@PritishTogare]

@@tylerkolota Thank you so very much. I really appreciate you responding this quickly.

[@ChrisMK-ix6nu]

I’m having trouble finding the download link. Is it still up?

[@tylerkolota]

Microsoft recently renovated their community forum and have yet to transfer file uploads for old posts. And it also won't let me edit the posts to try to manually add the files back. While I'm waiting for a fix, I created a link to a zip folder on my Google drive that includes the imports for most of my projects: drive.google.com/file/d/1-hZmu2-QdEl7l95Y3NdZ1jn8sYdaK2kD/view?usp=sharing

[@dolosofamili8838]

Can I do this without Power BI?

[@tylerkolota]

Sure, you can implement every piece except the Power BI workload tracker

[@haroldmotende7966]

Gold

[@melstockbridge]

THIS🙂

[@AkuaAsare-p6d]

Hello, how do I find the zip file?

[@tylerkolota]

Microsoft started renovating their community site & I can't re-upload any of the download files there at the moment. Here is a Google drive link to a zip folder with solution imports for most of my projects: drive.google.com/file/d/1-hZmu2-QdEl7l95Y3NdZ1jn8sYdaK2kD/view?usp=sharing

[@AkuaAsare-p6d]

@@tylerkolota Thank you so much for the quick response. I am going to try to set up my teams project channel today.