Integrate Excel Online Data into Automated Tasks with Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate is an online service that automates events (known as workflows) across the most common apps and services. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Excel Online data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Power Automate and integrate live Excel Online data into your workflows and tasks.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Excel Online, allowing you to easily integrate with live Excel Online data in Power Automate — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Automate and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Excel Online, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Excel Online data.

Configure Excel Online Connectivity for Power Automate

Connectivity to Excel Online from Power Automate is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Excel Online data from Power Automate, we start by creating and configuring a Excel Online connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Excel Online" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Excel Online.

   You can connect to a workbook by providing authentication to Excel Online and then setting the following properties:

   • Workbook: Set this to the name or Id of the workbook.

     If you want to view a list of information about the available workbooks, execute a query to the Workbooks view after you authenticate.

   • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are connecting to a workbook in a sandbox account. Otherwise, leave this blank to connect to a production account.

   You use the OAuth authentication standard to authenticate to Excel Online. See the Getting Started section in the help documentation for a guide. Getting Started also guides you through executing SQL to worksheets and ranges.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Excel Online Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Excel Online data from Power Automate.

Connecting to CData Connect Cloud

To use Connect Cloud to integrate Excel Online data into your Power Automate tasks, you need a new SQL Server connection:

1. Log in to Power Automate
2. Click Data -> Connections -> New connection
3. Select SQL Server
4. In the connection wizard:
   
   
   • Choose to connect directly
   • Set SQL server name to tds.cdata.com
   • Set SQL database name to the name of the Excel Online connection (e.g. ExcelOnline1)
   • Set Username to a Connect Cloud user (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   • Click Create

Integrating Excel Online Data into Power Automate Tasks

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to integrate live Excel Online data into your Power Automate tasks.

1. Log in to Power Automate
2. Click My flows -> New flow and choose to create the flow from blank or template
3. Add (or configure) a SQL Server action (like Get rows) and configure the action to connect to your Connect Cloud connection
4. Select a Table to work with (from the drop-down menu) and configure any advanced options (like filters, orders, etc)
5. Configure any actions to follow and test, then save the flow

SQL Access to Excel Online Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Excel Online data from Power Automate tasks. You can create more connections and workflows to drive business — all without replicating Excel Online data.

To get SQL data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Cloud.

Related Power Automate Articles

This article walks through using CData Connect Cloud with Power Automate (Online). Check out our other articles for more ways to work with Power Automate Desktop:

• Excel Online Data in Power Automate Desktop using CData Connect
• Excel Online Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC