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Looping and reading from list

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Posted on by lkhall_37203

Have a PAD process that I am looping through records on a web site and pulling out a value out of one of the columns in this case its an Agreed Rate. I then have an Excel file where I am using an "Read from Excel" action to get available rates out of up to 4 columns and storing those in Rate1 - 4 variables. I would think there has to be a way that I can build a list of the potential 4 available values and then just see if my Agreed Rate matches one of the Excel values, but I haven't been able to find it yet and have resorted to complex if statements and that just doesn't seem necessary. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

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Power Automate Desktop

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Does your remaining flow change based on which rate (1-4) it is?

If so, you want a 'Switch -> Case' scenario. A SWITCH looks at a variable and compares it against different options and chooses the path based on the option (like a decision fork on a process diagram). It looks like this:

Here is the code for the SWITCH -> CASE, if it helps:

SWITCH ActualRate
CASE = Rate1
# perform remaining flow for Rate1
CASE = Rate2
# perform remaining flow for Rate2
CASE = Rate3
# perform remaining flow for Rate3
CASE = Rate4
# perform remaining flow for Rate4
DEFAULT
EXIT Code: 0 ErrorMessage: $'''Actual Rate does not equal optional rates'''
END

Best of luck!
MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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If you just need to know if it matches one of them simply as a validation check, I would "Read from Excel" to a List (assuming the 4 are together) or if not, you could combine to a list after they are read.

Once you have them in a list, you could say If %List% does not contain %ActualRate%, throw error.

If you don't like that option, you could do something like this. It checks each one and moves to the Label down at the bottom, but if it doesn't find a match, then stops at the "stop flow" (which could also move to a different exception flow if you would like):

Here is the code for this example:
IF ActualRate = Rate1 THEN
GOTO 'Continue Flow'
END
IF ActualRate = Rate2 THEN
GOTO 'Continue Flow'
END
IF ActualRate = Rate3 THEN
GOTO 'Continue Flow'
END
IF ActualRate = Rate4 THEN
GOTO 'Continue Flow'
END
EXIT Code: 0 ErrorMessage: $'''The Actual Rate doesn\'t match the available rates'''
LABEL 'Continue Flow'

Best of luck!
lkhall_37203 72 on at

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Thank you for the reply I had in mind "read from excel" to a list but wasn't sure how it would handle blank values in the spreadsheet. You can see from the screen shot that the list could contain anywhere between 1 and 4 values and as long as the rate matches 1 of these it should just exit the loop and continue on else proceeded to workflow. I am going to mess around with your various options this morning and see what happens.
lkhall_37203 72 on at

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I think I might have found an easy solution that you actually posted in another thread. Using an if statement to check if the preferred rate = rate 1 and if so, just use a "Next Loop" to exit the flow and go back into the loop. Do this for each check of the preferred rate and put other workflow below the if blocks in case there is not a match.
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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Yeah, so if you just want it to stop that loop and go to the next loop, you could probably use that same logic that you have above, but say if %RateList% contains %ActualRate%, next loop.

Just to get it down to one action; otherwise, what you have should work.

Happy Automating!