Hi @Shane_G
Not sure I know what you mean by populating the variable dynamically. I'm interpreting it to be you want the flow to go check the excel file (in the example you mentioned) and get the contents of that file (maybe just one column with email addresses?) and store that list of values as a variable. If the excel file is different the next time you run your flow, it will save the new values instead. <If your question is different, then ignore this and someone else may have a more helpful response.>
If you are indeed trying to pull in data from an outside source as it exists now instead of defining your variable within the flow manually, then yes, PAD can definitely do that. Use the Launch Excel to open the file and create an excel instance for PAD to reference, then Read From Excel Workbook to tell PAD to copy data from a specific field or range of fields, and store the results as a variable. The resulting variable will have a single value, a list of values, or a table of values, of the data that it found in the excel file when the flow was ran.
For this explanation, let's assume you don't rename the variable so it gets saved as %ExcelData%. You can then call any one piece of that data back by using the variable name and [#] notation before the second % sign. You may already be familiar with this, but it's important to note a few things: First, PAD's indexing starts at 0, NOT 1 (the first row is row 0, second row is row 1, etc). Second, if you do two [#] references, the first one is the row reference, and the second is the column. Third, columns are indexed as numbers, not letters, so you may have to get creative if you're trying to automate commands within excel.
What does that mean? Well, if you grab data from one row or one column of an excel file, you're making a list. For example:
If you then use %ExcelData[2]% in a PAD command, it returns the third value (remember, it starts at 0, not 1) in that list, so it will return "Green".
If you instead grab more than one row AND more than one column, you're making a table within the variable.
| Luci | Desi |
| Fred | Wilma |
| Bart | Lisa |
| Ross | Rachel |
If you then use %ExcelData[3][1]% in a PAD command, it returns the fourth row, second column item, which would give you "Rachel".
This is how the variables work in PAD, and isn't unique to data read from excel or any other data source. This generally works with any Read or Get command, where it returns more than one item (particularly useful with excel data, or Get Files in Folder). You can call a specific value if that's what you want, or for more complex flows you can make a loop, to repeat a command with each value that you saved in the variable.
Hope this helps, let us know how it goes.
PRatcliff
