How to create a simple scheduler for Microsoft Teams chats!

One of the things I love most about the Power Platform is how quickly you can build a solution to a problem using a little bit of low code magic.

I have been working on a Power App with a colleague and we were casually chatting in teams about it. We agreed that we should have a meeting to run through some of the last few items on the backlog before we get it into testing and production.

Both of our calendars are pretty busy and so I had a bit of a lightbulb moment. Why can't you quickly send a list of options to your colleague for them to pick a time that works for them when you're both free...

Sure, I could use the create a meeting, but even the scheduling assistant assumes the time you choose is their preferred time.

So, off to work I went and built a nice little add in that allows you to do just that!

Getting the Workflow Ready

First, I click on the chat ellipsis, go to 'More actions' and then 'Create new action'.

My trigger for this workflow is to run 'For a selected message'.

Then I am going to get the message details, using the dynamic fields Message ID and Conversation ID for the Group chat.

Next, I want to get some of the user details to use in the workflow, so I am using the Office 365 connectors 'Get my profile (V2)' and 'Search for users (V2)'.

Now I have the message details and the users involved in the chat I need to move on to the next stage of my workflow!

Finding our availability

To find the availability of the users in the chat, I need to use the Find meeting times (V2) action. As I input the emails for myself and the user, I am chatting to it will create an apply to each loop. There are ways to get around this but for now this will do.

First I need to create a variable to store the available times so I do a quick Initialize variable action:

I want the tool/workflow to find times from 'now' and up to 10 days in advance. I know that my outlook will only schedule during working hours so I don't need to worry about weekends here.

I have two expressions:

utcNow()

addDays(utcNow(),10)

Building the adaptive card

Now I need to build an adaptive card so that the person I am chatting to can select a list of available dates.

First I use the compose function to get my variable into a usable function. The I use the Select function to build my choice list.

I wanted my dates and times to be user friendly so I added in two functions here

formatDateTime(item()?['start']?['dateTime'],'dddd dd MMMM hh:mm tt')

Separate them with a dash

formatDateTime(item()?['end']?['dateTime'],'hh:mm tt')

For the value I am choosing the start.ddateTime dynamic value as I want to use this when booking in the meeting.

Next I need to create an Array to put the choices that have been formatted into the JSON for the adaptive card. This is the body of the Select function

body('Select')

Next I am going to choose the Post an adaptive card and wait for a response action

The body for the adaptive card is below but make sure to put in your variable for the choices.

{
    "$schema": "http://adaptivecards.io/schemas/adaptive-card.json",
    "type": "AdaptiveCard",
    "version": "1.0",
    "body": [
        {
            "type": "TextBlock",
            "text": "Meeting Poll Request",
            "id": "Title",
            "spacing": "Medium",
            "horizontalAlignment": "Center",
            "size": "ExtraLarge",
            "weight": "Bolder",
            "color": "Accent"
        },
        {
            "type": "TextBlock",
            "text": "Let's find a time to meet!",
            "id": "acHeaderTagLine",
            "separator": true
        },
        {
            "type": "TextBlock",
            "text": "Hi, I've checked our calendars and here are some times we can meet",
            "id": "acInstructions",
            "wrap": true
        },
        {
            "type": "TextBlock",
            "text": "Meeting Poll",
            "id": "acPollQuestion"
        },
        {
            "type": "Input.ChoiceSet",
            "placeholder": "Select from these choices",
            "choices": @{variables('VarMeetingChoices')},
            "id": "acPollChoices",
            "style": "expanded"
        }
    ],
    "actions": [
        {
            "type": "Action.Submit",
            "title": "Submit",
            "id": "btnSubmit"
        }
    ]
}

Next I am using the Parse JSON action to get the bits I need from the response of the adaptive card.

The Content in the below is the body of the adaptive card action.

I have pasted the Schema below for speed if building this yourself.

{
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "responseTime": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "responder": {
            "type": "object",
            "properties": {
                "objectId": {
                    "type": "string"
                },
                "tenantId": {
                    "type": "string"
                },
                "email": {
                    "type": "string"
                },
                "userPrincipalName": {
                    "type": "string"
                },
                "displayName": {
                    "type": "string"
                }
            }
        },
        "submitActionId": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "messageId": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "messageLink": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "data": {
            "type": "object",
            "properties": {
                "acPollChoices": {
                    "type": "string"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Getting the meeting booked in

The last step is to automatically book the meeting in when the user has selected an option. I have added in a few bits to make the invite useful, such as adding in a link to the chat in Teams that caused us to need this meeting.

The start time you can get from the 'acPollChoices' dynamic content