Case study
A working project-management bot in 3 days
Important work was getting lost between calls, Microsoft Teams and the project board. Grail put a working project-management bot inside Teams in 3 days, then kept improving it as the team used it.
The problem
People agreed work in conversations but did not consistently create or update tasks. The existing board no longer showed the real plan, permissions were unclear and follow-up depended on someone remembering to chase it.
The system we built
Grail built a bot that turns a Teams conversation into a task on the company’s existing board. It records the owner, applies the right privacy rules and sends scheduled reminders through Teams or email. The board remains the team’s official task list.
Microsoft Teams
Vikunja
Postgres
Microsoft Graph
TypeScriptThe result
The bot was working inside Teams in 3 days. The team can create and update work where conversations already happen, and later requests have been turned into working changes within hours.
Results at a glance
| Primary result | Working first version in 3 days |
|---|---|
| Operational result | Later feature requests delivered within hours |
| System scope | Private-by-default task ownership |
| Delivery note | Teams messages and the project board kept in sync |
How we built it
We started with one common request in Teams, connected it to the existing board and tested the role and privacy rules with the team. Once that worked, we added reminders and new commands in response to real use.
- A team member describes a task in the existing chat channel.
- The bot confirms the task, owner and due date in the conversation.
- It adds or updates the task on the existing board with the correct privacy setting.
- Scheduled workers find overdue work or tasks that need a response.
- The bot sends reminders through Teams or email and records updates back on the board.
How people stay in control
The software handles repeatable checks and routine work. People still approve decisions that affect customers, money, privacy or compliance.
- New tasks stay private unless the user chooses to share them.
- Project administrators can still see private tasks.
- The existing board remains the official record of the team’s work.
What we delivered
The finished scope included:
- Task creation and updates from Microsoft Teams.
- Private tasks and shared work on the existing board.
- Scheduled reminders through chat and email.
- Clear roles for members and administrators.
- Messages handled in sequence when several people use the bot at once.