Does "Read from Excel Worksheet" changes the file type!!!

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Posted on by Meiko

Hello,

I have 2 excel workbooks: "Staging" and "Estimation". I am reading cells from "Staging" and writing to "Estimation".

however, the first time I Read from Excel worksheet "Staging" it seems like the file is not recognizable as a excel file. Any ideas why and how to get around it?

I attached screenshots to show the issue: in the first one the step "Read from Excel worksheet" is disabled and you can see in the next step "Close Excel" this workbook is available as an option.

in the second one I enabled the "Read from Excel worksheet" step and the Staging workbook is not an option anymore in "Close Excel" step.

p.s. I can't use "Copy cells from Excel worksheet" as these cells contain formula and I need to copy values only.

Thanks,

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Power Automate Desktop

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momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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When you read from excel to %staging% it holds the value of whatever was read from the excel.
It is not a file reference itself, so it will not be referenced, only variables produced by the action "launch excel" are excel objects that close excel can reference.

so what I believe you did is you used the same name for variables:

1. You used launch new instance of excel and it produces %staging% - excel object
2. You have read from excel action that reads the values into %staging% hence you are destroying your excel object with a new variable that is no longer an Excel object hence it cannot be referenced in close excel.

Is that what you are doing?

so ensure you use unique variables for your objects, for example, %ExcelInstance_Staging% and other names for data read from excel, for example %ExcelData_Staging%
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Meiko 14 on at

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Hi Momlo,

that is what I am doing and your explanation makes sense. let me change name and try again. I will let you know if it works.

Thanks for your reply.
Meiko 14 on at

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@ Momlo,

it worked!

Thank you very much again
momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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great!
yeah... we need to deal with all variables being global, hence it is easy to cast types of variables accidentally.
On the other hand, I do it on purpose on many occasions to limit the number of variables produced in the flow.
momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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great!
yeah... we need to deal with all variables being global, hence it is easy to cast types of variables accidentally.
On the other hand, I do it on purpose on many occasions to limit the number of variables produced in the flow.