Answered

Reading an Excel File from File Input field, is it possible?

(2) Share

Report

Posted on by JD-10060408-0

I've seen the great tutorials from Shane and Reza in youtube how to get files from PowerApps canvas to Power Automate

But I'm getting stuck in the part where they use Sharepoint to read the content of the file from a File Input field since my work account's subscription of power platform does not include Sharepoint nor OneDrive.

Right now I am able to read the file content from Power Automate submitted from Power Apps, but I'm not sure how to make what of the file contentBytes w/o relying on Sharepoint or OneDrive as I don't have access to either of these tools.

So I'd like to know if it's possible to achieve this in power automate, to parse and read a file passed in an Input field w/o Sharepoint nor OneDrive.

Thank you.

Categories:

Using flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (3)

Answers (1)

Verified answer

Michael E. Gernaey 53,969 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

HI @JD-10060408-0

Yes, if its a text file, technically you can regardless, as you can use AI functions etc, all of which will return "in-memory" results that you can then use Compose, split, or other expressions on.

So in this case you want to grab the Content Bytes from the Trigger property (The Dynamic property of the FileContent input)

Now, depending on what the data is, you may need to "debase64 it" so its back into its full true format. But after that you can use that inmemory content to do actions and filters and searches against it, as well as passing that content to other AI, or other Actions that DO NOT require you to write it to disk first.

So yes, you can.

As that answers the question, would you be so Kind as to Mark as Such and maybe a like.

Thanks!

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
JD-10060408-0 18 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hello @Michael

Thank you for posting a reply.

For now I was able to get the base64 of the excel file into a Binary format.

Unfortunately im not sure how to convert it to a readable format like to a json or csv within Power Automate.

and for those that are open to using a different file format instead of excel, at the very least after trying a csv file instead, reading its data from base64 conversion is straightforward.

But as for my case, I still hope to use an excel file instead.

Thanks again for posting an answer, ill put on hold marking your reply until reading data from excel becomes clearer to me.

For additional context, what my use case for this feature is to upload an excel file from Power Apps, and have power automate insert data to sql server based on the data of that excel file

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Michael E. Gernaey 53,969 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hi @JD-10060408-0

If you have a file that is in Binary format, which is why i said it depends on what you create, you just save it and give it the correct file extension and the system will know what file type it is.

If its a text file, then there is no reason to use base64 at all.

But your question was how to get a file into a flow for which you cannot "convert" an excel file IN memory into a readable format it doesn't work that way.

You do not have to save it if the content is going to Actions that need Content, if you want to read it, you have to save it, there is nothing you can do, as Excel actions do not work just giving them content.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No