Using data tables as input and output variables in Power Automate Desktop

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Posted on by FreeRangeDingo

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Here's what I need to do....

1. Take content from a spreadsheet on Teams

2. Enter it in a SharePoint (on premise form)

3. Update the spreadsheet on Teams

Because I am using SharePoint on-premise, I have to use PAD, not PA to fill out the form. When I try to use PA, my fields that are of type person or group do not appear in the Create item action in Power Automate, and there are other issues with SS/EIN fields. So, I'm entering data in the form via PAD. The issue I am having is in getting the content from Teams updated. I ran into file locking issues with Excel online and One Drive. So now I am trying to use data table input and output variables in PAD.

When I create the table as an input variable, there are options to add and customize columns. But, when I create the table as an output variable, that is not the case.

Input table

Output table

I have been unsuccessful at adding data to either the input or the output table. It kinda makes sense that I wouldn't be able to add data to an input table. When I try to add rows to the output table, it says they aren't of the same size, but I can't change it. What's going on? I feel like I'm missing some background knowledge on how these actually work and the documentation isn't helpful.

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Power Automate Desktop

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Well, the input has an edit button because you manually create a user input table. Same as if you started with an Excel workbook and read the excel file to a variable.

the output table is whatever the variable is, so you don’t need to define the number of columns and rows because they are already defined by the variable created. So, if you read a table from sharepoint to a variable, it doesn’t matter how many columns or rows it has, you can save it as an output variable.

If you are trying to get the output variable to another flow, then I don’t think you want input table (this is a manual input table). I think you want “get environment variable” or something like that which fetches an already existing variable from somewhere else.

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FreeRangeDingo 114 on at

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Thanks for the quick reply. I was expecting to be able to pass the Excel file as a data table input from Power Automate into PAD. I agree that the data table input starts out as manual when I create it in PAD, but ultimately the data comes from PA into PAD.

I was also thinking that I would bring in the Excel file as a data table input variable. Because it gets modified in PAD, I would then use the output data table variable to send the updated content back to PA. But the problem is I can't get any data into the output variable. I get errors that say it's not the same size, but I can't change the size.

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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So, I know that you can pass variables from PA to PAD and pull variables from PAD to PA, but I haven't ever dealt with it. Both are capable of using Excel, so if PA creates a file and saves it in Excel, you could use PAD to open Excel, manipulate it, save it, and then have PA open it again.

If you want the Excel file as a variable inside of PAD, then you have to:
Launch Excel
Read from Excel

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FreeRangeDingo 114 on at

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@MichaelAnnis that is exactly what I wanted to do but I ran into file locking problems.

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Hi @FreeRangeDingo

I did not go through your entire conversation but if you want to create a datatable dynamically then you can do so with the Set Variable action.

Scroll to the section where it says "Additionally, you can create a datatable using the Set variable action"

Variable data types - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn

Also check the new action Create new data table and Insert row into data table if that suits your requirement.

https://youtu.be/xvgKI1fx3bU

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Sorry we couldn't find a solution. I have realized that this board is full of mostly people who just use PAD. You may have better luck in the more General Power Automate board as I'm sure the users there have more experience passing variables to and retrieving variables from PAD.

Best of luck!

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