Opening Excel with External Link

[Defacto87]

Hi all,

I'm new to PAD and I am having trouble opening Excel files that contain external links (that need to be updated) or when other warning message are prompting user's to click a box at the launch of Excel such as the following (when using "Launch Excel action"):

I tried:

1. to include a subflow ("SB1") that would wait for the pop-up and click on EI element to answer for me, but the issue is that the I never get pass the "Launch Excel function" (the flow get stuck at this function/action until I click manually to chose to update or click continue so I never get to execute SB1). I also tried to run SB1 "on error" of Launch Excel, but that does not seem to resume the Launch Excel Function (or at lease does not create an "excel instance").

2. I also tried to implement the solution suggested under this post:

 Solved: Opening Excel with External Links - Power Platform Community

Again, I'm fairly new to this and I tried to copy and past @rolign's script into "Run PowerShell script" changing the filepath the mine (i.e. one pre-defined previously in my flow as a flow variable) , but all it does is open excel and close it (the file does not appear to even open). My issue might be that his instructions says to "afterwards attach to the instance and continue with the steps", but frankly I don't know how to do this. The Run PowerShell script does allow me to produce a variable, but this variable does not seem to be an "excel instance" (i.e. I'm not able to continue to interact with it using other excel actions (such as Set Active Excel Worksheet or "read from excel worksheet") -  which I have disabled in the screen shot below). Any idea how to implement this script and create an excel instance out of it to run other excel actions?

It is noteworthy that I also tried to disable automatic link updates in Excel app and disallowing updates via Trust Center, but this will not solve my issue. 

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong or other ways to avoid these popups, close them automatically or disable them completely?

Many thanks!

[Kaif_Siddique]

Hi @Defacto87 ,

Try to break link.

Data> Edit Links> Select Source and click on Break Link

If I have answered your question, please mark my post as Solved.

If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up.

Regards

Kaif

[Defacto87]

Hi @Kaif_Siddique 

Unfortunately this does not help. Prior flow include pulling the most recent version of a file that is saved under a Sharepoint site by another user, save this file locally, then I'm trying to open it, run macros on it and save it for our team locally. The goal is that at no point in time, I should have to interact with the file manually. The excel warning appears automatically when using the "Launching excel" action in PAD and my flow will remain blocked (i.e, the Launching Excel" action will not complete), until I have manually clicked "Continue".  The interesting part is that if I try to launch Excel this excel manually, there is no message prompting me to click continue. This only happens when launch with PAD.

[rolign]

Hi, there is an action to attach to running excel instance, here's the code (Use the actual name of the workbook in the FileName variable):

Excel.Attach DocumentName: FileName Instance=> ExcelInstance

[tedjoseph]

I am having this same issue. Is there a solution within Power Automate? If you can't open a spreadsheet with links, it seems like an obvious shortcoming.

[tedjoseph]

I've tried this, but attach only works for files that are already open.

[rolign]

@tedjoseph Here's the article that describes how to open file with Powershell (it is mentioned in this article as well... https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Desktop/Opening-Excel-with-External-Links/td-p/12...

Use attach afterwards.

[cpkhoi]

I am having the same issue as above, whenever I launch this excel file.

The funny thing is that this message only popup after an action that moved this file to another folder; when I tried to create another action that launch this excel file in a different flow (without moving it anywhere before), then the message didn't popup.

I tried to created an action "Send key" an Enter to close the Popup message, but it didn't work and the flow was paused right there (without sending in the Enter key to close the message)

Anyone can help me? Thanks

@MichaelAnnis Hoping you can reach this 🙂

[MichaelAnnis]

Underlines are hot keys. So if you can’t get the elements to work and want to use send keys, you can use {Alt}(c) in this case to continue. 

[cpkhoi]

It didn't work, sorry to inform you. The message still popup and not closed as expected

I tried a lot of different combinations here (Send key to Foreground window/current Excel instance; Alt+C or just Enter), but I don't think it's the reason for the issue:

The way I see it: Whatever action is placed after Launching the Excel file will be PAUSED there until I have to close the popup message MANUALLY; because without closing the popup message, PAD see the action of "launching Excel" is not complete and thus -> Cannot move to whatever action after that.

(As you see, my flow will keep RUNNING till I close the popup message manually with my own mouse)

I also turn off the "Ask to update automatic links" in my Excel, If I open it manually, then the message won't be popping up

I hope this describe the case clearly to you. Thank you Michael

[cpkhoi]

.

[rolign]

@cpkhoi https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Desktop/Opening-Excel-with-External-Links/td-p/12...
This is the article where opening excel files with external links is described - use Powershell code and then the next action would be attach.

Also you can try using Run Application instead of Launch Excel, and then Attach to file.