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Copy and paste Excel information

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Posted on by Job1

Hi all,

I am experiencing issues with my PAD flow. I am downloading a report every month and I want the content of that report to be copied into my master file which I use for my calculations. I have gotten the flow so far that it downloads the file from the website, opens it up, but then when I select the cells I want to copy and paste the cells, it tell me "Click failed (failed to get UI Element)".

I use the recorder to record every action after launching the browser and I have gotten it to work in the past, however since the data was copied incorrectly I removed the command. Also, since it's not recognized as an active instance of Excel, I can't use the regular "Read from Excel Worksheet" action.

Any tips will be much appreciated.

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Power Automate Desktop

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Hi @Job1

..but then when I select the cells I want to copy and paste the cells, it tell me "Click failed (failed to get UI Element)".

Do not use the recorder while interacting with the cells.

Use the "Copy cells from Worksheet" and "Paste cells from Worksheet" actions of PAD.
Wakeley 12 on at

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If you open the Excel-file through "Launch Excel" (here you need the path for the file), then you'd have an instance that you can refer to through other Excel-activities such as "Copy cells from Worksheet".

If you use UI-elements make sure to check the selector for unwanted criteria such as a filename, that I assume changes from time to time.
Job1 4 on at

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Thanks for the reply, the flow is actually designed to open the file and then copy and paste the information. This means that there is no active Excel instance that the flow can refer to as the opening command is to launch chrome and then by clicking on UI elements, download the file and open it. This leaves me wondering whether there is a way to refer to the opened file as a UI element?
Wakeley 12 on at

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@Job1
There are different ways to address this, and it depends on what you want to do in the spreadsheet. You could continue using UI-elements in the spreadsheet, but I assume you want to Excel-activities - in this case you could:
If downloaded
- If you know the folder of the Excel-file you could use and "Get files" to retrieve the file-info and "Launch Excel"
- If you know the path you can use the path in "Launch Excel"
If open and not downloaded
- Use UI to download/save the file and determine the path to subsequently use "Launch Excel".
- You can use a "Get Details.." activity to retrieve the document name, which you can use in "Attach to Running Excel". Thereby you establish an Instance in order to use other Excel-activities.

Does it make sense? 🙂