cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Reply
FlavioSWK
Frequent Visitor

Access File of Manual Flow Trigger with Excel Connector

How can I access a File of a manual Flow Trigger with an Excel Connector?

 

I want to access the xlsx file that was put in for "Adress List" with the Excel Connector, like shown in the image:

 

2022-07-08 11_24_55-Edit your flow _ Power Automate und 3 weitere Seiten - Geschäftlich – Microsoft​.png

 

The Excel Connector requires several parameters and I don't know what to put in there if I don't want to refer to a sharepoint site.

 

Is there any way I can get this to work for the "Adress List" file?

8 REPLIES 8
schwibach
Super User
Super User

Where did you store the file?

In a Team, in your OneDrive?

 

For starters it's easiest to put the file in your personal OneDrive.

In location and document library you then select OneDrive.

In File, you browse for the file that you stored.

 

Once you have done that, you get to select the existing tables in the file. (The data must be stored as a table.... if you have the data stored in a range, select all the data and hit Ctrl+T in Excel. Then you get a table)  

__________________________________
Please mark topics as solved if they are and give kudos to make people happy 🙂
Always interested to hear about solutions/problems in the education sector.

I do not have a specific location where I store the file. That's why I use the manual file input in the flow trigger, like in the image:

 

FlavioSWK_0-1657544907024.png

The excel file always has the same structure but I get a new version every now and then via E-Mail. That's why I want to import it manually using the import button in the trigger.

schwibach
Super User
Super User

In order to use the Excel connector, the file needs to be stored (temporarily) in OneDrive or SharePoint. Just create a temp folder and a file name with a guid() as file name (to handle multiple parallel flows) and then delete the file afterwards in the flow.

 

Then you can use the connector.

__________________________________
Please mark topics as solved if they are and give kudos to make people happy 🙂
Always interested to hear about solutions/problems in the education sector.

Could you please share an example using the guid() function?

 

I tried creating the temporary file but I always get an Error 400 with message "This file is locked for shared use".

schwibach
Super User
Super User

Maybe, you could try with a delay, so the file is not locked anymore.

Excel is not the preferred datasource when working with Power Automate. So, it has some additional gremlins.

 

Are you sure you need to use excel and cannot provide the data in a different form?

__________________________________
Please mark topics as solved if they are and give kudos to make people happy 🙂
Always interested to hear about solutions/problems in the education sector.

I just tried it using a delay of 1 minute but it does not seem to work.

 

Is there any other Connector I could try instead of "Create File" for Sharepoint?

 

Unfortunalety yes, I have to work with the Excel file.

schwibach
Super User
Super User

Try the onedrive for business connector with the create file action... Just to try.

__________________________________
Please mark topics as solved if they are and give kudos to make people happy 🙂
Always interested to hear about solutions/problems in the education sector.

I just tried. Unfortunalety I get the same error message:

 

"The resource you are attempting to access is locked"

Helpful resources

Announcements
Power Automate News & Announcements

Power Automate News & Announcements

Keep up to date with current events and community announcements in the Power Automate community.

Community Calls Conversations

Community Calls Conversations

A great place where you can stay up to date with community calls and interact with the speakers.

Power Automate Community Blog

Power Automate Community Blog

Check out the latest Community Blog from the community!

Users online (4,876)