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recognize entities in text - extracting the value

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Posted on by Dyna

Hi there, I am working on an automation in Power automate Desktop which extracts data from a cell in excel, the data has words in and before the part that i need, I have used the activity "recognize entities in text" which looks for "numbers" which does work when I look inside the variable produced the value is there that I need, however I can't seem to get that value.

I've tried creating a new set variable and taking the data but not getting anywhere.

an example of the data is this "a variable with words 12345 hello there" I require just the number value.

Is there a better way to do this, perhaps just using Regex?

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Power Automate Desktop

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PetrosF-MSFT Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @Dyna, could you copy the actions that you are using to extract the number and paste them here? Also what is the version that you are using?
I'm curious because I added the action "Recognize entities in text" with input "a variable with words 12345 hello there" and it extracted the number successfully.
Thank you!

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Dyna 10 on at

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Hi there, thanks for a quick response.
In terms of version: 2.16.215.22020
see below
what's currently coming back from the entity var is this. (If I double click that it does give me the "12345" I require, but i can't seem to get that into a variable to reuse

I was using the set variable to confirm I was getting the correct info back
Hopefully this makes sense.

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Why is there 2 columns. This is a Datatable? I thought for sure 'Reconginze entities in text' would come back to a List variable. Can we see the data in %LAAccountEntry%? If you run past when it is populated, you should be able to open the variable pane, hover over the variable, click the 3 dots and click View. Screenshot that, so we can see what is in it.

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Dyna 10 on at

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apologies for the slow reply,
Regards,
Lee

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Ok, so that is definitely a DataTable variable type.

Datatables can be referenced by %DataTable[RowIndex][ColumnIndex]% on a 0 based index ([0] = row 1).
So, Set Variable %LAAccountNumberFormatted% to %LAAccountEntry[0][1]%

Good luck!

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Dyna 10 on at

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thanks a lot, didn't realise you could do that as the same in powershell etc

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