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retrieve excel attachment and use rows of data in a desktop flow

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I have a cloud flow which is triggered on the retrieval of an email with specific subject. I want to get the excel attachment data and push it through to be used in a desktop flow. Not sure how to do this. Can somebody please assist.

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Power Automate Desktop

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Expiscornovus 33,869 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous,

Maybe the following approach is possible? Let me know if this works for you.

1. Save the attachment to a OneDrive site via the cloud flow
2. Make sure you have the OneDrive client sync setup on the machine where you are running your desktop flow
3. Create a desktop flow with a input parameters for your OneDrive local file system folder and one for your file filter (%NewInput%) and add those to a get files in folder action
4. Add a run a desktop flow action and make sure you use the OneDrive file name

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Will the (%NewInput%) file filter be the file name?

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Expiscornovus 33,869 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@Anonymous, yes that's correct. Sorry, for the strange input parameter name in my example 😄

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Now how do I actually take the table extracted and loop through each row and perform a function with the contents thereof?

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Expiscornovus 33,869 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous,

With a couple of actions you could launch Excel, determine the cell range (by using the get first free column/row action) and read the data.

With an for each loop you can iterate to that ExcelData DataTable and execute your preferred actions. In my example I am setting variables and running a starting a subflow for each item.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Can you please just provide the syntax which you type into the set var to get the value of the first cell, as well as how to create a sub flow. I got the steps right until here. Thanks so much for the assistance!

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Expiscornovus 33,869 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous,

Yes, sure.

The syntax of the first set variable is this:
%CurrentItem['AccountNumber']%

Subflows can created in the subflows menu, in the top left of PAD designer

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Thanks please see the following images showing that my column cant be found even though it is pulled into my excel sheet.

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Expiscornovus 33,869 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous,

Have you enabled the first line of range contains column names toggle button in your Read from Excel worksheet action in the advanced settings section?

Alternatively, can you format your data as a table?

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