{"id":3129,"date":"2023-06-29T13:00:46","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/powerofplanning.co.uk\/?p=3129"},"modified":"2024-05-06T15:45:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T15:45:49","slug":"task-automation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powerofplanning.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/06\/29\/task-automation\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Task Automation with Excel, Tick Tick and Zapier!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post wasn\u2019t intended to be centred around task automation, but it became such a time saver that it evolved into its own post, and one I think is far more helpful. Originally to be one aspect of a post titled \u201c5 Ways to Speed Up Your Planning Process\u201d, which I am now going to publish separately, task automation has dramatically reduced the time it takes me to organise myself and prioritise my key goals and I can\u2019t believe I wasn\u2019t doing it before!<\/p>\n

This week I gave myself the challenge of reducing the time it takes me to plan my week<\/a> from 2hrs to 1hr. However, when taking on this challenge it became clear that automating how I schedule and create tasks in Tick Tick \u2013 if possible \u2013 was the sole way I was going to achieve this.<\/p>\n

My approach was quite simple: try to break down how I plan my week into multiple steps and Identify any steps that were either unnecessary or could be streamlined. Here\u2019s a quick summary of my \u2018planning the week\u2019 process before this week\u2019s challenge:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Use my Excel template, as seen below, to document the key tasks I need to achieve.<\/li>\n
  2. Move any goals to the tasks on hold column if they were blocked. Move any goals from the \u2018on-hold\u2019 column to the \u2018goals for this week\u2019 column if they had become unblocked.<\/li>\n
  3. Copy all of my priority tasks to the priority tasks section for visibility.<\/li>\n
  4. Create these tasks in Tick Tick and schedule them for the ideal time.<\/li>\n
  5. Change all of my tasks to the correct List category in Tick Tick for visibility (the categories I have set up are: work, priority, personal, and event).<\/li>\n
  6. Do it all again for my work week once I\u2019ve planned in my personal tasks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"Original

    My Excel “Weekly Planner Template” before this week<\/p><\/div>\n

    From the above, it\u2019s clear to see there is duplication in the process. I would write the task I wanted to achieve in Excel, and set its priority \u2013 then do this again to get it into Tick Tick. If by some miracle I could just do it in Excel and then click a magic button to make all the tasks appear in Tick Tick I approximated I would get half the time back.<\/p>\n

    It was clear this was the most glaring opportunity to save time. I just didn\u2019t know if it was realistic. I\u2019ll be honest, I wouldn\u2019t normally have taken the time and effort to look into this \u2013 purely due to the fear of wasting time if it was a dead end. But with this post in mind, I figured I\u2019d at least come out of it with some useful information that could be shared.<\/p>\n

    And knowing what I know now – I\u2019m very happy I persevered\u2026<\/p>\n

    Part 1 – Introducing Zapier<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

    So my first port of call was Tick Tick\u2019s<\/a> website to see if it had any information about importing data, in particular via a CSV that I could create via Excel. This was the page<\/a> I had navigated to, which just stated that you could import tasks from Todoist<\/a> and certain other planning apps. Not what I was looking for, unfortunately. It did give me some hope though \u2013 if Tick Tick was offering this, then there was a good chance there may be another feature that could provide what I needed.<\/p>\n

    I next searched Excel and Tick Tick, and this was when I discovered Zapier<\/a>, which was soon to become my greatest ally in my quest to half the time it takes me to plan my week. Zapier is a platform that allows integration between various different applications, with the main purpose of automating key processes in workflows to save time and resources. I\u2019m amazed I hadn\u2019t heard of it before, working in the CRM space, where this would no doubt be incredibly useful.<\/p>\n

    Now I had something more concrete to base a plan around. From a quick read of Zapier\u2019s Tick Tick integrations, I could see that you could set up an automation for creating tasks when completing certain actions in Excel.<\/p>\n

    The closest one that could help me achieve what I wanted, was to create a task in Tick Tick when a row is created or update in an Excel worksheet. Not quite what I was after given I would want to make many amendments to my worksheet before creating tasks off the back of it.<\/p>\n

    \"Zapier's

    The potential triggers for live automation between Excel and Tick Tick<\/p><\/div>\n

    This left me at a bit of a dead end and I spent a bit of time thinking of a way to make this work for me. What I was really after was the ability to import data from an Excel sheet and have it interpret the rows of data \u2013 like uploading a CSV or txt file for example. The live automation feature wasn\u2019t the ideal solution.<\/p>\n

    Part 2 – Zapier\u2019s Transfer Feature<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

    After failing with the Zaps feature, which is what the Zapier site directs you towards straight away \u2013 I then looked down at the other options I could see once signed in. Transfers, Tables, and Interfaces \u2013 which I hadn\u2019t even noticed until now \u2013 looked like they could potentially provide batch uploading and automation through an Excel Document. I first tried through the tables feature but found this was more of a data storage functionality within the Zapier UI. I then clicked on Transfers and this was exactly what I was after! Batch uploading and processing for my task automation!<\/p>\n

    \"navigating<\/p>\n

    The transfer process was really easy to set up and once I discovered the data it required in order to create my Tick Tick tasks, all I needed was to update my Excel template for planning my week to allow it to read the data correctly \u2013 and create tasks for only the rows I wanted.<\/p>\n

    Part 3 – Updating My Excel Template<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

    Setting up the integration was really simple. You just follow the steps on the site by signing into your office account and then your Tick Tick account.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    \"connecting

    The process of connecting to my Microsoft account and selecting the relevant Excel Doc was really simple<\/p><\/div>\n

    I then set up the \u2018Transfer\u2019 as required. To create the task, the fields that needed populating were:<\/p>\n