How to structure Excel data for web forms with many dropdowns and non-linear layout (PAD)

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Posted on by CU10030357-0

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Hello everyone,

I’m using Power Automate Desktop to input data from Excel into a web form.

My current understanding (simple case):

Usually, the Excel file looks like this:

Name	Department	Position
John	IT	Software Engineer
Anna	Finance	Financial Analyst

Then in PAD:

Read Excel
Loop through each row
Populate the web form field by field

My problem:

The web form I’m working with is NOT simple.

It has many dropdowns
Questions are arranged vertically (not in a clean left-to-right structure)
Some fields appear in different positions on the screen
It looks more like a complex form (see screenshot, I attached an image)
My questions:
1. In this kind of web form, should I still use the same Excel structure (row-based)?
2. How do you handle:
  - Multiple dropdowns?
  - Fields that are not in a fixed order?
3. Is there a better way to structure Excel for this type of UI?
4. Do you recommend a different approach instead of simple row-by-row input?
My concern:

It feels difficult to map Excel columns directly to the form because:
- The layout is not consistent
- Some elements are dynamic (dropdowns, UI components)

Any advice, examples, or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Categories:

Building flows

Power Automate Desktop

Using flows

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Valantis 6,735 on at

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Hi @CU10030357-0,

Keep the row-based Excel structure. One row per record, one column per field including all your dropdown values.

The form layout does not need to match the Excel column order at all.

In PAD you target each field individually by its UI element selector, not by screen position. So it does not matter if the fields are vertical, scattered, or in a different order than your Excel columns. You just build your flow to fill them in whatever order works for the form.

For dropdowns specifically, use the Set drop-down list value on web page action. It selects by the text value, not by index or position, so it handles dynamic dropdowns reliably.

structure:
- One column per field (Rule name, Account style field, Record type, Threshold period etc.)
- One row per record
- PAD reads each row and maps each column to the correct UI element

Can you confirm what platform or application this form belongs to? (to be sure that PAD is the fix here)

Best regards,

Valantis

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CU10030357-0 106 on at

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Hi @Valantis,

Thank you so much, this will help me to star building a flow, now I know where to start. I'm a beginner with PAD, so I might ask more questions, any help would really be appreciated. again thank you.

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11manish 3,333 on at

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Do not try to map Excel to the layout of the screen;

map Excel to the data fields themselves.

Use the UI Automation category in PAD to "Capture" every unique field, regardless of where it sits vertically.

If the form is truly erratic, use JavaScript to fill the fields directly via their IDs, which bypasses the "visual" layout issues entirely.

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