Automating Excel Monitoring with Power Automate: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction: In today’s fast-paced business world, ensuring data accuracy is critical. In this guide, I will show you how to use Power Automate to monitor your Excel files for data discrepancies and automate notifications. This setup will help you save time, reduce manual checks, and improve data reliability.

In my previous Project we saw that how to fetch data from data base using JMeter in .plain file then convert in Excel files. In this Project we will Monitor the Excel files and get alerts over email or teams chat group, if there is any discrepancy in data with conditions we mention in our flow.

How It Works:

• The flow runs every 15 minutes to scan the Excel file.
• Any issues in the data are detected and immediately sent to your inbox.
• You receive a detailed email with the table data included, formatted for quick review.

Below are the sample screenshots of the Excel files.

Understanding the Scenario

You have three Excel files containing sales data:

1. Daily Sales
2. Monthly Sales
3. Annual Sales

Each file contains sales records for four employees. Your goal is to automate the monitoring of these files, and if any employee’s sales figures drop below 50, you’ll receive an email alert.

Flow Overview

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how your automated Power Automate flows are set up:

Step 1: Trigger the Flow

• The flow is set to trigger on a recurrence every 30 minutes, ensuring that you receive timely updates.
• This helps monitor sales performance throughout the day, month, and year.

Step 2: Initialize Variables

• File Path: You first initialize a variable to store the path of the respective Excel file (Daily, Monthly, or Annual). This variable is essential for locating and accessing the right file for processing.

Step 3: List Rows in Excel Table

• Using the “List rows present in a table” action, you fetch all the sales records from the Excel sheet.
• Make sure your Excel file has a predefined table format to ensure this action works smoothly.

Step 4: Initialize Email Body Variable

• You declare another variable named EmailBody, which is set to an HTML string containing the column headers (Employee Name, Sales, etc.). This prepares the structure for your email notifications.

Step 5: Append Data to Email Body

• Within an “Apply to each” loop, you append rows of data to the EmailBody variable, formatting them in HTML. This ensures the email you receive is structured and easy to read.

Step 6: Conditional Check for Sales Threshold

• The next step is to add a condition within the loop:
  • If Sales < 50, the flow sends an alert email.
• This ensures you get notified if any employee’s performance drops below the set threshold, allowing you to take corrective action promptly.

Step 7: Send an Email Alert

• If the condition is met, an email is triggered containing the HTML table with the relevant data.
  • Subject: “Alert: Low Sales Detected”
  • Body: The email includes the EmailBody variable you created, so you receive a neatly formatted table.

Flow Structure for Each Excel File

I have created separate flows for each Excel file (Daily, Monthly, Annual). This modular approach ensures that we can monitor different timeframes independently and receive targeted alerts for each period.

• Daily Sales Flow: Keeps you updated on your team’s daily performance.
• Monthly Sales Flow: Highlights monthly sales trends and flags low performers.
• Annual Sales Flow: Provides a yearly overview and ensures long-term targets are on track.

By having separate flows, you can quickly identify which period’s data requires your attention and respond accordingly.

Benefits of This Automation Setup

1. Time-Saving: No more manual checks on sales reports—everything is automated.
2. Real-Time Alerts: Stay on top of sales performance and address issues immediately.
3. Data-Driven Insights: Monitor trends and performance metrics to make informed decisions.

Feel free to reach out if you need further assistance with enhancing your automation flows. I am committed to helping you optimize your processes and achieve your automation goals!