Is it possible to access data table columns by name in PAD?

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by 509

Hi,

I'm trying to access the columns of a data table by name.

The official documentation says the following:

If you want to access a specific column in a datable that contains column headers, use the %ExcelData[rowNumber]['ColumnName']% notation.

This is obviously nonsense, since if we filter by column AND row, we end up with a cell, not a column.

I tried a bunch of stuff like using [:] for row numbers or even [0:{number of rows here}] but it seems as soon as you select more than one row, PAD hits you with the following error:

Variable 'DataTable[:]' doesn't have a property 'ColumnName'.

I mean I know I can build a workaround by searching for the index of the column name in DataTable.Columns and then accessing the column via that index, but this just seems unnecessarily complicated. Am I missing something?

Categories:

Power Automate Desktop

All responses (2)

Answers (1)

Sort by

Verified answer

MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

There is an action. I believe it is “get column as list” or something like that. This extracts an entire column from a datatable into a list. And you should be able to use the same syntax without a row.

good luck!
Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

The action you need is called Retrieve data table column into list. You can use a column name in it to retrieve the entire column into a list variable.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I have answered your question, please mark it as the preferred solution.
If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up.

If you are interested in Power Automate, you might want to follow me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnius-bartninkas/