Custom Software: Automating Bulk Calendar Reminders

Custom Software: Automating Bulk Calendar Reminders with Excel and Outlook

In today’s digital era, businesses require tailored solutions to optimize their operations, streamline processes, and enhance productivity. Custom software is a personalized application developed to meet the specific needs of an organization. Unlike off-the-shelf software, which provides standardized functionalities for a broad audience, custom software is designed to integrate seamlessly into a company’s unique workflows, ensuring improved efficiency, security, and scalability.

What is Custom Software?

Custom software, also known as bespoke software, refers to applications specifically built to fulfill a company’s particular requirements. It is developed from scratch or adapted from existing frameworks to meet a business’s exact needs, ensuring a higher level of control, flexibility, and optimization compared to generic software solutions.

Benefits of Custom Software

Personalization: Unlike one-size-fits-all solutions, custom software is tailored to align with business objectives, workflows, and challenges.

Scalability: As companies grow, their operational needs evolve. Custom software adapts and scales without the constraints of pre-packaged solutions.

Integration: Many businesses use multiple tools to manage operations. Custom software integrates seamlessly with existing platforms like CRMs, ERPs, and cloud-based systems.

Automation: By eliminating manual processes, custom software reduces human errors and enhances efficiency.

Security: With proprietary custom software, businesses gain control over security features, minimizing vulnerabilities associated with widely-used, off-the-shelf applications.

Cost Efficiency in the Long Run: While the initial investment in custom software may be higher, the long-term benefits in terms of reduced operational costs, improved accuracy, and scalability make it a worthwhile investment.

For more insights into how custom software solutions can transform your business, visit Microsoft Custom Software Development.

Use Case: Automating Bulk Calendar Reminders with Custom Software

One of the most practical applications of custom software is process automation. Manually scheduling calendar reminders can be time-consuming, prone to errors, and inefficient. By implementing custom software, businesses can streamline their scheduling process, ensuring that events are set up accurately and without human intervention.

A prime example of this is the automation of bulk calendar reminders using Excel and Outlook. With this custom software solution, companies can automatically extract event data from an Excel file and generate corresponding calendar invitations in Outlook. This eliminates the need for manual scheduling, reducing errors and ensuring timely notifications for all attendees.

This document provides a step-by-step guide on how to create a custom software solution using Power Automate to automate event scheduling efficiently. By leveraging automation through custom software, organizations can:

Eliminate repetitive tasks and free up valuable time for employees.

Reduce the risk of scheduling errors or miscommunications.

Enhance team collaboration by ensuring all members receive event notifications on time.

Improve workflow efficiency by integrating seamlessly with existing business tools.

Now, let’s dive into the details of building this custom software solution and how it can simplify calendar management within your organization.

Power Automate is a platform that allows the automation of repetitive tasks through the creation of flows, which are a sequence of steps in which different applications and services can be connected to each other, in order to perform certain specific automated actions.

The flow Create reminders in bulk in the calendar from an Excel was designed in order to automate and simplify the process of scheduling events, it connects to Excel and Outlook, allowing the data inserted into the Excel file to generate (by means of a button) all the events at the same time in the calendar, including the necessary details and the corresponding assistants.

It is essential to create the Excel table beforehand, since the flow starts from the values added in this table, also for several key reasons related to the connectivity, structure and configuration of the flow; for this particular flow the Excel table was created with the following columns:

Event

Customer

City

Description

Date

Start time

End Time

Assistant1

Assistant2

Assistant3

Assistant4

Assistant5

It is crucial that the Excel created is in table format as shown below (img1) as this allows the flow to be more flexible and dynamic.

img.1

Initially we must access Power Automate, click on the “Create” option and then on “Instant cloud flow” since this type of flow is activated manually by means of a button. (img.2)

img.2

Then we must assign a name to the flow and (this name must be concise to identify the flow easily) select trigger “Manually trigger a flow”. (img.3)

img.3

The flow and its connections will be detailed below:

Once we are in the interface to create the flow, we continue to add a new action from the “+” icon. As the data starts from an Excel file, then that will be what we will put in the search engine and after that, we will click on the “See more” option to display all the actions that we have available in this Microsoft Excel connection. (img.4)

img.4

We will select the action “List rows present in a table”, this action is used to retrieve rows from a table in an Excel site, which will allow us to obtain specific data to use in other actions of the flow. (img.5)

img.5

Once we select the action we can add the corresponding data such as the location of the file, type of document, file and table. We will also click on the “Show all” option to add the “DateTime Format” parameter that is used to define the date and time format that is applied to the values that are entered or read from Excel cells. (img.6)

img.6

We continue to add a new action to our flow. We press the “+” icon and in the search bar we write the action “Apply to each” that allows us to iterate on each row of our Excel list, in the parameters we will add with dynamic content “body/value” as shown below. (img.7)

img.7

The next action that is added to the flow within the “Apply to each” is a Compose, which we will rename “Compose Start Date” in order to identify its function within the flow.

Here we will add this expression which will concatenate the date with the start time of our Excel table (img.8):

concat(formatDateTime(items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘ Fecha’], ‘yyyy-MM-dd’), ‘T’, formatDateTime(items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘ Hora Inicio’], ‘HH:mm:ss’), ‘-05:00’)

img.8

Do not forget to press “Update” to add or update the expression, it is also important to pay attention to each character that is presented in it since, if only one comma is missing, it invalidates that expression.

We continue with our next action in the flow which is another Compose very similar to the previous one, only that in this one the date will be concatenated with the end time of our Excel table. (img.9)

We add the following expression that is similar to the previous one, if we look closely we can notice that the only change was to replace [‘Start Time’] with [‘End Time’]:

concat(formatDateTime(items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘ Fecha’], ‘yyyy-MM-dd’), ‘T’, formatDateTime(items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘ Hora Fin’], ‘HH:mm:ss’), ‘-05:00’)

img.9

We continue adding the last action of our flow, once again we click on the “+” button and look for the action “Create event (4)” (img.10)

In the “Calendar Id” parameter we will select the calendar that we will have for the creation of the events, in this case it will be Calendar

Continuing with the “Subject” parameter, we will add text and dynamic content, which is what will be displayed as a title in the event created in the calendar.

img.10

In the “Start Time” parameter we add with dynamic content the Output of the Compose “Compose Start Date” (img.11)

img.11

And in the “End Time” parameter we add the Output of the Compose Compose as shown in the following image. (Img.12)

img.12

We will also specify the “Time Zone” parameter so that the date and time are correctly adjusted to your location, in this case it will be Bogota. (Img.13)

img.13

We add the required attendees to the event in the “Required Attendees” parameter, these are the attendees that we have in our Excel table therefore we will add them with the dynamic content of “List rows present in a table”.

We need to make sure that each dynamic content added in this parameter is separated by semicolons (;) since this is the correct way to concatenate the dynamic content, and that there are no problems in the flow. (img.14)

img.14

Finally, we will give structure to the bodysuit with text and dynamic content as we saw above. Again, the dynamic content will be taken from “List rows present in a table” (img.15)

img.15

With the steps executed you will have the structure of the flow as follows: (img.16)

img.16

It saves, performs a test by adding values to the Excel table, executes the flow and ensures that the events are created correctly in the calendar to ensure correct operation.

The Role of Custom Software in Business Automation

The implementation of custom software has become a crucial factor in business automation, enabling companies to optimize repetitive tasks, enhance efficiency, and improve overall productivity. Automating bulk calendar reminders using Excel and Outlook is just one example of how custom software can significantly streamline workflows, eliminate human errors, and ensure timely execution of key operations. By investing in custom software, businesses gain a competitive edge, allowing them to tailor their processes and systems to their exact needs rather than conforming to generic, pre-built software limitations.

Companies that embrace custom software solutions not only enhance their internal efficiency but also improve collaboration, data security, and long-term scalability. Whether it’s automating scheduling, integrating different business tools, or developing bespoke solutions for specific industry challenges, custom software is a key driver of digital transformation in modern businesses.

Why Choose Pevaar? Experts in Custom Software Development

At Pevaar, we specialize in custom software development, offering tailored solutions that align with your company’s unique needs. Whether you need custom-built applications, software integration, or process automation, our team of experienced software engineers is ready to help you optimize your workflows. We also provide staffing services to ensure that you have the right talent supporting your technological advancements.

Looking for a custom software solution? Contact us today and discover how Pevaar can help you develop bespoke software that enhances efficiency, security, and scalability for your business.