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PAD does not recognize empty fields

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Posted on by TBenson

Hello,

I am building a flow in Power Automate Desktop to copy information from different excel forms into one excel file. If a certain field in an excel file is empty I want PAD to skip copying this cell into the other file. I was trying to use the IF empty condition. However, since the cell is part of a dependent drop-down menu it is not registering the cell as empty. How can I build the flow in a way that it will skip this cell?

Thanks in advance

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Can you share what the contents of the cell look like when PAD reads it (in variable preview)?

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TBenson 9 on at

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Hi,

See the screenshots below. There are six different variables.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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How exactly are you extracting it? Why is it a list, if it should be a single cell value?

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TBenson 9 on at

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I am reading the cells from excel and then splitting the text that is read because there can be multiple selections in the cell. If I use the original variable it is also showing empty but not skipping it. Here are some screenshots.

Regards,

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Might be it contains some whitespace character or something like that. Try using Trim text on it before splitting it. Then check the trimmed text for being empty.

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TBenson 9 on at

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I had the trim text feature further in the flow. I tried with your solution now, it does not work. The problem is that although the cell in excel appears as empty, PAD is not recognizing it as empty and is therefore performing the copying action where it should not.

Kind regards,

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Instead of checking if it is empty, check if %Activities2weeksSD.Length% is equal to 0. This is the same as it being empty.

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I also provide paid consultancy and development services using Power Automate. If you're interested, DM me and we can discuss it.

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