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Session Id :
Power Automate - Building Flows
Answered

Refreshing excel files with external data sources via Flow

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Posted on by 7

Happy New Year, all!  I've been trying without success to get PA to refresh an excel file (details below) and wondered whether anyone can please help.

 

The file is stored on Onedrive.  It uses Power Query to refer to an XML file online - using current month as part of a dynamic URL - and then filters and processes the results (because the XML file is pretty messy it's useful to be able to use PQ rather than sharepoint to pull the data).  There's a second 'master' table that I want the current month result to be added to on the first of each month.

 

So far I've built a flow that uses Recurrence > Get File Content > Update File > Get a Row > Add a row to a table

 

The 2nd and 3rd steps are to get the file to refresh the XML at the start of each month.  'Update File' is where the flow breaks, with the error #423;

 

The file [my sharepoint location] is locked for shared use by [my email] [membership].

 

I've checked and it's not open anywhere else.  Any advice gratefully received.

 

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  • Verified answer
    v-bacao-msft Profile Picture
    on at
    Re: Refreshing excel files with external data sources via Flow

     

    Hi @jpd99 ,

     

    Whether [my email] is the same as the email configured with Excel connection, I speculate that the Excel file is locked because Add a row into a table action is doing the write operation.

     

    Please try to recreate the similar Flow and add a Delay action under the Update file action and Add a row into a table action, and wait for the file to unlock automatically.

     

    Best Regards,

  • jpd99 Profile Picture
    7 on at
    Re: Refreshing excel files with external data sources via Flow
    Thanks Barry - I tried adding delays (and a couple extra, in case) but still no joy...
     
    {
    "message": "The file [link] is locked for shared use by [email] [membership].
    \r\nclientRequestId: [nnnnnn]
    \r\nserviceRequestId: [nnnnnnn] ; [nnnnnnn]",
    "status": 423,
    "source": "[link]'",
    "errors": [
    "-2147018894",
    "Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFileLockException"
    ]
    }

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