I have built a simple flow, my first ever, to automate part of our admin user access request process.
When a new user requests admin access, an email hits my inbox. My flow grabs that email, parses the relevant parts, and adds a row to a OneDrive Excel spreadsheet. The sheet the flow feeds has a number of formula columns, mainly concatenate, which I want to use in my automated reply, but it seems I can't. This flow terminates at the Initialize CurrentAdminEmail step with this error.
The cell that is supposed to feed into that step is an INDEX-MATCH formula that finds other admin users at that organization from another sheet. Near as I can figure, when this flow adds a new row, the formulas don't calculate, which means when it looks in that cell, it's empty. What's the fix here? I haven't found a "Make Excel calculate formulas" step.
Thanks!
Solved! Go to Solution.
Many months later, my flow is working exactly as I envisioned. I had a conversation with someone at Microsoft where I described how I intended for Power Automate and Excel to work together, and his first reaction was to point out much of what I was relying on Excel to do I could be doing in Power Automate, particularly all the Concatenate and Index-Match functions. So instead of using a compose step to grab the contents of a cell containing an Index-Match formula, I used a Get a Row step to grab the data I need from the sheet directly using a key value I extract from the request email. Then instead of building up the auto reply text using a bunch of Concatenate and If functions in Excel, I am using control steps in my flow and just arranging the appropriate text and variables directly in the Send an Email step at the end.
It's been a long(ish) journey, all of which was kicked off by this video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrCs36S3w3w. It's a great intro, and it got me to a nice in between place where I could copy and paste manually from Excel into reply emails I would send manually. This saved a lot of time, but I couldn't make it to the finish line without stepping out of my Excel comfort zone. Ultimately, the work I did creating that spreadsheet that autofills based on the request emails I get isn't even necessary unless I want a record of all the requests I get. Power Automate can parse everything and handle all lookups and logic branching.
Lots of fun and frustrations here. I'm looking forward to my next Power Automate project.
Hello @CharlesTEA ,
the error message tells you, that in the "Initialize_CurrentAdminEmail" action you're using a last(...) expression, but the input of the last(...) expression is empty, no value enters the expression. Try to check what value should enter the expression, it probably doesn't contain the value you expect.
Ideally, it should be a string of one or more email addresses, but when the flow adds a row in the table, it doesn't add data to that cell. Instead, there is a formula in the spreadsheet for that column in the table that pulls data from another sheet using an Index-Match function. I want the flow to grab whatever the result of that function is. When I look at the spreadsheet, that column is full all the way down. Every new row has something in that column, but when I try to grab it in my flow, it's null.
Last(...) is probably the wrong expression here. I want the full contents of the cell, but that cell is a formula and I specifically want the result of the formula.
Hello @CharlesTEA ,
check in the run history the output of the 'List rows present in a table' action, if it doesn't contain the data from the column with formula, then it's not sent to Power Automate and you can't use it in a flow.
Many months later, my flow is working exactly as I envisioned. I had a conversation with someone at Microsoft where I described how I intended for Power Automate and Excel to work together, and his first reaction was to point out much of what I was relying on Excel to do I could be doing in Power Automate, particularly all the Concatenate and Index-Match functions. So instead of using a compose step to grab the contents of a cell containing an Index-Match formula, I used a Get a Row step to grab the data I need from the sheet directly using a key value I extract from the request email. Then instead of building up the auto reply text using a bunch of Concatenate and If functions in Excel, I am using control steps in my flow and just arranging the appropriate text and variables directly in the Send an Email step at the end.
It's been a long(ish) journey, all of which was kicked off by this video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrCs36S3w3w. It's a great intro, and it got me to a nice in between place where I could copy and paste manually from Excel into reply emails I would send manually. This saved a lot of time, but I couldn't make it to the finish line without stepping out of my Excel comfort zone. Ultimately, the work I did creating that spreadsheet that autofills based on the request emails I get isn't even necessary unless I want a record of all the requests I get. Power Automate can parse everything and handle all lookups and logic branching.
Lots of fun and frustrations here. I'm looking forward to my next Power Automate project.
Episode Seven of Power Platform Connections sees David Warner and Hugo Bernier talk to Microsoft MVP Dian Taylor, alongside the latest news, product reviews, and community blogs. Use the hashtag #PowerPlatformConnects on social media for a chance to have your work featured on the show! Show schedule in this episode: 0:00 Cold Open 00:30 Show Intro 01:02 Dian Taylor Interview 18:03 Blogs & Articles 26:55 Outro & Bloopers Check out the blogs and articles featured in this week’s episode: https://francomusso.com/create-a-drag-and-drop-experience-to-upload-case-attachments @crmbizcoach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3522H834Ro/ @pranavkhuranauk https://github.com/pnp/powerapps-designtoolkit/tree/main/materialdesign%20components @MMe2K https://2die4it.com/2023/03/27/populate-a-dynamic-microsoft-word-template-in-power-automate-flow/ @StefanS365 https://d365goddess.com/viva-sales-administrator-settings/ @D365Goddess https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=megel.mme2k-powerapps-helper#Visualize_Dataverse_Environments @MMe2K Action requested: Feel free to provide feedback on how we can make our community more inclusive and diverse. This episode premiered live on our YouTube at 12pm PST on Thursday 30th March 2023. Video series available at Power Platform Community YouTube channel. Upcoming events: Business Applications Launch – April 4th – Free and Virtual! M365 Conference - May 1-5th - Las Vegas Power Apps Developers Summit – May 19-20th - London European Power Platform conference – Jun. 20-22nd - Dublin Microsoft Power Platform Conference – Oct. 3-5th - Las Vegas Join our Communities: Power Apps Community Power Automate Community Power Virtual Agents Community Power Pages Community If you’d like to hear from a specific community member in an upcoming recording and/or have specific questions for the Power Platform Connections team, please let us know. We will do our best to address all your requests or questions.
Super Users – 2023 Season 1 We are excited to kick off the Power Users Super User Program for 2023 - Season 1. The Power Platform Super Users have done an amazing job in keeping the Power Platform communities helpful, accurate and responsive. We would like to send these amazing folks a big THANK YOU for their efforts. Super User Season 1 | Contributions July 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022 Super User Season 2 | Contributions January 1, 2023 – June 30, 2023 Curious what a Super User is? Super Users are especially active community members who are eager to help others with their community questions. There are 2 Super User seasons in a year, and we monitor the community for new potential Super Users at the end of each season. Super Users are recognized in the community with both a rank name and icon next to their username, and a seasonal badge on their profile. Power Apps Power Automate Power Virtual Agents Power Pages Pstork1* Pstork1* Pstork1* OliverRodrigues BCBuizer Expiscornovus* Expiscornovus* ragavanrajan AhmedSalih grantjenkins renatoromao Mira_Ghaly* Mira_Ghaly* Sundeep_Malik* Sundeep_Malik* SudeepGhatakNZ* SudeepGhatakNZ* StretchFredrik* StretchFredrik* 365-Assist* 365-Assist* cha_cha ekarim2020 timl Hardesh15 iAm_ManCat annajhaveri SebS Rhiassuring LaurensM abm TheRobRush Ankesh_49 WiZey lbendlin Nogueira1306 Kaif_Siddique victorcp RobElliott dpoggemann srduval SBax CFernandes Roverandom schwibach Akser CraigStewart PowerRanger MichaelAnnis subsguts David_MA EricRegnier edgonzales zmansuri GeorgiosG ChrisPiasecki ryule AmDev fchopo phipps0218 tom_riha theapurva takolota Akash17 momlo BCLS776 Shuvam-rpa rampprakash ScottShearer Rusk ChristianAbata cchannon Koen5 a33ik Heartholme AaronKnox okeks Matren David_MA Alex_10 Jeff_Thorpe poweractivate Ramole DianaBirkelbach DavidZoon AJ_Z PriyankaGeethik BrianS StalinPonnusamy HamidBee CNT Anonymous_Hippo Anchov KeithAtherton alaabitar Tolu_Victor KRider sperry1625 IPC_ahaas zuurg rubin_boer cwebb365 Dorrinda G1124 Gabibalaban Manan-Malhotra jcfDaniel WarrenBelz Waegemma drrickryp GuidoPreite If an * is at the end of a user's name this means they are a Multi Super User, in more than one community. Please note this is not the final list, as we are pending a few acceptances. Once they are received the list will be updated.
Join us for an in-depth look into the latest updates across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform that are helping businesses overcome their biggest challenges today. Find out about new features, capabilities, and best practices for connecting data to deliver exceptional customer experiences, collaborating, and creating using AI-powered capabilities, driving productivity with automation—and building towards future growth with today’s leading technology. Microsoft leaders and experts will guide you through the full 2023 release wave 1 and how these advancements will help you: Expand visibility, reduce time, and enhance creativity in your departments and teams with unified, AI-powered capabilities.Empower your employees to focus on revenue-generating tasks while automating repetitive tasks.Connect people, data, and processes across your organization with modern collaboration tools.Innovate without limits using the latest in low-code development, including new GPT-powered capabilities. Click Here to Register Today!
We are excited to share the ‘Power Platform Communities Front Door’ experience with you! Front Door brings together content from all the Power Platform communities into a single place for our community members, customers and low-code, no-code enthusiasts to learn, share and engage with peers, advocates, community program managers and our product team members. There are a host of features and new capabilities now available on Power Platform Communities Front Door to make content more discoverable for all power product community users which includes ForumsUser GroupsEventsCommunity highlightsCommunity by numbersLinks to all communities Users can see top discussions from across all the Power Platform communities and easily navigate to the latest or trending posts for further interaction. Additionally, they can filter to individual products as well. Users can filter and browse the user group events from all power platform products with feature parity to existing community user group experience and added filtering capabilities. Users can now explore user groups on the Power Platform Front Door landing page with capability to view all products in Power Platform. Explore Power Platform Communities Front Door today. Visit Power Platform Community Front door to easily navigate to the different product communities, view a roll up of user groups, events and forums.
We are so excited to see you for the Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas October 3-5 2023! But first, let's take a look back at some fun moments and the best community in tech from MPPC 2022 in Orlando, Florida. Featuring guest speakers such as Charles Lamanna, Heather Cook, Julie Strauss, Nirav Shah, Ryan Cunningham, Sangya Singh, Stephen Siciliano, Hugo Bernier and many more. Register today: https://www.powerplatformconf.com/
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