'Get a row' missing dates from excel

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by sophieclark

108

Hello

I'm having this intermittent issue with flows randomly failing because dates are not being pulled from excel every time, despite them being present in the excel table.

My final step of the flow sends an email that contains a date from excel, which i've formatted using an expression, but in the failed cases the email doesn't send because it doesn't recognise a date. When i view the 'get a row' on the failed flows, the dates are missing, despite them being on the excel.

4 days ago, there were multiple times this flow ran and worked perfectly, recognising the dates from excel, then today the flow has failed twice, with absolutely no changes made to the flow in between. The process is EXACTLY the same, but one day it works and the next day it fails. I've tried resubmitting the failed flows, making sure the dates are populated on excel (which they are) and i've tried re-adding in the expression to the email, and its still failing. This is the outputs of the get a row from a successful flow and failed flow that ran days apart. I cannot understand why one day the dates pull in and other days they don't.

Does anyone have any advice? is this a known issues? its really causing me a headache.

Thanks in advance

Sophie

Categories:

Building flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (4)

Answers (0)

David_MA 12,925 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

Like (0)

Report

I cannot really tell from your screen shot what you are showing, but if it is an Excel action, have you set the DateTime format parameter to ISO 8601? If not, try that to see if that resolves your issue.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
sophieclark 108 on at

Like (0)

Report

Hi @David_MA

My screenshot is from the outputs of the get a row function, showing how it was successful pulling dates one day then a few days later it didn't pull the dates and then failed.

I already have the date and time formatted as ISO 8601 and it hasn't changed since i built the flow. Nothing has changed in the way the flow has been built, between is being successful and then starting to fail.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
David_MA 12,925 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

Like (0)

Report

In the screen shot on the right, it says your flow failed. What action failed and what was the error message? That probably has clues to the issue. Did the e-mail fail because the date was blank? If so, you can use a coalesce expression to handle when the date is blank so the flow does not fail. This will show you how to use the coalesce expression: Blank, Coalesce, IsBlank, and IsEmpty functions - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
sophieclark 108 on at

Like (0)

Report

@David_MA I explain it all in my original post.

Yes it failed because the date was blank as i use the date in an expression. I know the work around if fields are blank, but I don't want the email to send if the date is blank as its important criteria to be included in the email.

The date is never blank on the excel sheet so the issue here isn't so much the fail. It's why the dates are not being recognised (on some occasions, not all) in the get a row function, which then ultimately fails the flow at the send an email stage.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No