This is a tenacious issue. If you have been struggling with getting POD to consistently open Excel documents, I believe I have found the solution (see below).
First of all, let me describe what I was trying to do. I have several Excel documents that are running folder queries using the local file paths. Various people in the company are using Excel for the Web to review this information. I also have web automations that would like to use the updated data. What I wanted to do was simply open the files by scheduled automation, refresh the data and close the files. The OneDrive client would then update the web files to SharePoint and everyone would have the new data. Often the first one would work but following instances would all fail. Power Automate Desktop would fail to open the Excel instance. At this point, neither could I. Excel would tell me that another application had the file open. Turning off all flows and even shutting off Power Automate Desktop did not release the file. At first, I was restarting the computer to get back in. Then I ran the Task Manager and following some clues I picked up from the boards, discovered that there a lingering EXCEL.EXE still open (it was in the Details tab of the Task Manager). Ending that task would free up the file without me having to restart the system. So that was something. It did not solve the POD issue though. No matter what I did, once it failed, POD would not open that Excel instance until I rebooted. Wash, rinse and repeat.
I tried fixing the installation of Office. That did not work.
I adjusted the advanced setting of the automation. That did not work.
So, this is what worked for me. I am a citizen coder. This should all be pretty easy to follow.
Solution:
Instead of using the Excel process Launch Excel, I ran a System process called Run application. You can then navigate to your Excel file, select it, and: hope at last! When you run the automation, the file opens. No issues.
The issue you now have is how to manipulate the open application. For that we're going back to the Excel process menu, and we'll use Attach to running Excel.
BUT first we have to give the application a few seconds to open. So, I inserted a step to Wait for 20 seconds, and then I ran my Attach to running Excel. For a while I had an issue here as well. At first, I tried navigating to the file the same way that I launched it, but I got error messages claiming that it could not find the file. Odd. I tried using the AppProcessID variable that was produced by the Run application step, but that did not work either. Finally, on a hunch, I changed the filename so that it had no spaces in it. I remapped the Run application step to the new filename, and then used the new filename itself for the Attach to running Excel process. Include the extension in the name so you will type something like: ExcelFileName.xls, or in my case ExcelFileName.xlsm. Finally: voila! Now you have an open instance of Excel and you are attached to it, meaning you now have a variable called ExcelInstance, and you can now use the available Excel processes. I don't know if you need to remove the spaces in the file name. I have since run a few updated versions leaving the spaces intact. It seems to work, but for good measure I initially removed them. In any case, now I could run my macros, save the document, and close Excel using those stock Excel processes. I ran the automation several times. It works every time.
