Add & Update Excel Data to SharePoint List using Power Automate | Excel Import using flow

This video is a step-by-step tutorial on how to add and update your SharePoint list items from Excel Table data using Power Automate flows.
We will create a template Excel file, where data to be imported to SharePoint will be loaded. The Template file will be made available for download from SharePoint Library (or OneDrive). Excel files with data rows will be uploaded to a SharePoint drop off library where Power Automate flow will be listening to start adding or updating the data from the Excel file (Table with rows) to SharePoint List.
Flow will track the status of the Excel file, Log updates & perform error handling, add & update SharePoint list data for most column types - Text, Date, Date & Time, Choice, Lookup, Person, Multi select choice, multi select person columns & more.
We will also look at getting lookup column ID from secondary SharePoint List.
Flow will check if row in Excel has an existing item in SharePoint. If yes, then flow will update SharePoint item from Excel row data else flow will create a New Item in SharePoint List.
This Power Apps Video covers the following:
✅ SharePoint List
✅ Excel Template from SharePoint List
✅ Add Excel data to SharePoint List using Power Automate
✅ Update Excel data to SharePoint List using Power Automate
✅ Add data validation & null checks in Excel & flow
✅ Date and time conversions
✅ Excel file import status logging & more.
✅ Performance & Limitations for large excel files with large number of rows, 256 row limits, pagination, 6 minutes delay for locked file status & more.
🔗 Download ⬇️ Sample flows
github.com/rdorrani/Microsoft...
🔗 List rows present in a table (Excel Connector)
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/conn...
🔗 SharePoint connector
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/conn...
🔗 Power Automate flow Expressions Tutorial
• Power Automate flow Ex...
Table of Contents:
0:00 - Introduction to Add & Update Excel Table data to SharePoint using flow
0:47 - SharePoint List Scenario
2:08 - Import Excel data to SharePoint
2:41 - Create the Excel template file to Import to SharePoint
7:19 - Excel Data Validations
8:35 - Create Power Automate flow to add Excel Table rows to SharePoint List
24:33 - Add Null Checks in Flow
26:41 - SharePoint Date & Time Columns - Time Zone Conversions
29:25- Limitations & Performance for large data in Excel
32:27 - Update Excel File Status (file locked scenario when List Rows present in a Table action is called in flow)
35:51 - Add logic in flow to update SharePoint List data from excel file.
40:04 - Log results of Excel file import to SharePoint using Power Automate
41:42 - Subscribe to Reza Dorrani channel
#PowerAutomate #Excel #SharePoint #ExcelImport #SharePointList #Flow #MicrosoftFlow
🤝 Let’s connect on social:
🔗 LinkedIn: / rezadorrani
🐦 Twitter: / rezadorrani

[@amigomusa]

I will be the first to comment, haven't even watched the video yet. Confident that you always come through with the best step-by-step guided tutorials on the Power platform. 😀...

[@RezaDorrani]

Wow, thank you but I would love to hear your feedback on the video whenever you get a chance to watch it :)

[@amigomusa]

@@RezaDorrani I will surely watch it during my Power Hour, currently at work.

[@TheMKTube]

@@amigomusa “power hour” love it

[@WillCooper1]

Extremely useful information. This is something that is needed in many scenarios for solutions built in SharePoint. There are some tricky things to address when moving the data. Thanks!

[@RezaDorrani]

You're very welcome!

[@tomseymore9395]

A lot to digest, but *extremely* helpful, thank you! I learned quite a bit in one sitting. I will have to play & pause to get some details right, but you have paced this in such a way that won't be as difficult to do. Thanks again for taking the time to create this.

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad it was helpful!

[@jourdan6947]

This worked perfectly and saved me hours of work manually migrating items to a SP list! You are much appreciated Reza!

[@RezaDorrani]

You are most welcome

[@manishh7323]

Absolutely phenomenal. I was building a flow to talk directly to Salesforce via their premium connector but it was such a heavy operation (s) to get all the values ,etc. Then realised I could use Excel to talk to a preconfigured report in sales force which would give me the values I needed without multiple lookups and then to use this file to update SharePoint. Your video could not have been posted at such an appropriate time. It's gonna save me days of figuring out stuff. And I learnt so many new things. You are a genius and I thank you for sharing your knowledge to bring the rest of us (ok I am referring to myself) to about 5% of your level !

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear the video is helpful! Thanks so much for sharing your scenario.

[@UCanDoIt2Mike]

Extremely well organized lesson. Straight to the point and well articulated. Thank you for sharing.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You so much

[@akashkaushik3267]

Hi Rezza...thank you for posting this video. Creating the flow proved to be so efficient in inserting over 4000 rows of data from a spreadsheet to a list in SPO. Keep up the good work.

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@danyell12345]

Incredibly helpful! Awesome! I am new to power automate and this was such a thorough and detailed walkthrough. Thanks!

[@deborahshipp7597]

Best video Ive ever seen. You spoke clearly, you went just slow enough. I absolutely love you man!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear it! Thanks so much.

[@chrysarreola5902]

You and Shane young are basically carrying my career on your backs

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You so much for watching our videos. We try our best our best to share our learnings. (Speaking on behalf of Shane as well)

[@CloudhoundCoUk]

The video covers complex processes. Will require a number of views to even begin to grasp the subject matter covered. But if you are serious about automation this is a MUST VIEW video. Thank you Reza. Keep up the good work.

[@RezaDorrani]

You are most welcome!

[@SS-lu2bm]

I wish you knew how much I APPRECIATE you, Reza! I have learned so much from your tutorials and couldn't do my job without them!

[@RezaDorrani]

You are so welcome!

[@anshukumari8982]

From beginning till the end there are so many important items covered. Amazing video. Thanks Reza !!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear the feedback. Thanks Anshu.

[@johanvandyk6532]

Awesome, have been looking for a good example and this one is great!!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks Johan

[@dianarobledov1670]

as always, thank you very much for taking your time to record, explain, edit and share all this knowledge!

[@RezaDorrani]

You are most welcome

[@enitesh]

Super video. Even though I have been using Excel connectors for the past couple of years, there’s no always some details in your videos that helps me to increase the flow performances. Thanks Rezza

[@RezaDorrani]

Great to hear! Thanks for watching.

[@akashnet]

This is really great. Could you please create a seperate complete video around error handling. That would be really helpful. Once again thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@RezaDorrani]

I make videos when I get multiple requests on a particular topic. Every quarter I ask subscribers for topic suggestions on the Community Tab of my KZbin channel. Subscribers vote for topics and the highest voted topics get added to my backlog. Make sure you post this in the next topic suggestion post. If it gets a lot of votes, I will add it to my backlog.

[@christopherthornton8152]

I'm with you Akash! I'd love a deep dive into what is going on at the end.:) Thank you Reza for all that you do! You've taught me (us) SOOOO much! Thank YOU!

[@davidoddy4668]

@@RezaDorrani the error handling would be very useful

[@NaranRet]

Reza, simply the-B-e-s-t

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks

[@bobthewobbly6516]

It's always the best when I google a very specific scenario and a video from Reza documenting exactly what I'm trying to do pops up.

[@RezaDorrani]

💖

[@hlinaminyilal7540]

Thank you so much as usual Reza! I have learnt many new ideas from this video. You are the backbone of our success in our work environment.

[@RezaDorrani]

Wow, thank you

[@jhhatcher1885]

You are a great teacher, I really enjoy your training videos. Thank You!!!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad you like them!

[@TheKalipolis]

Reza, my hero. Again, this is exactly what I was looking for to solve a problem at work. Thanks!!!!

[@RezaDorrani]

Awesome!

[@matheusbarbosa745]

Man, you are the best! Continue to do the work you are doing, because you are helping so many people! Congratulations.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You for your kind words. I will keep trying my best.

[@RobertDJolliffII]

Thanks so much for this video. You explained very well and allowed me to help me provide an over 4000 line list to an app that we are using to search for parts. GREAT JOB!!!!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that! Thanks so much for watching.

[@franknielsen3219]

Lookup columns is hard work. Thx for the great walk-through 👏👏👏👏

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@akshaynm]

Really a gem Reza. Though it looks like a very simple and easy topic, I experienced that it is really very complex activity to import data from Excel to SP List. You have explained very complex part like adding multiselect choice fields, multiselect person field, date and time field with the classic workaround are really great. This I would say you demonstrated a complete solution all together. Thanks a lot as always 🙏🏻

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks so much for the appreciation Akshay

That magic of video editing that you do not have wait for delay action to finish running. BTW in my test tenant update file properties 2 action after 6 minutes delay ended with 400 error. Icreased the delay up to 10 minutes, flow ran successfully. Thanks for sharing 🙏👍

[@RezaDorrani]

Video editing magic but in reality, I had to wait for 6 mins :) I agree with that issue. If you set it to 7 mins you should be good.

[@becky5687]

Thank you so much for this video! I have been looking for an example of how to do this and your example is great. I will be sure to check your site when I need an example in the future!

[@RezaDorrani]

Awesome! Thanks for watching and liking the video.

[@idaeinjaw2139]

wow most detailed sharepoint flow tutorial ever. thanks!

[@RezaDorrani]

Wow! Thank You for watching.

[@krishnabairi1581]

Good stuff Reza... Single video with lot of use cases and expressions... Thank you

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad you liked it!

[@anthonyleduc]

Wow. You covered a lot of subjects. Thank you for helping me to improve my skills

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks Anthony

[@jekyllhyde05]

Thank you for this awesome tutorial, Reza! You are awesome as per usual! ❤

[@RezaDorrani]

You're most welcome and thank you for watching

[@WillCooper1]

Excellent information Reza. You have helped me learn so much. Appreciate all your long hours of time and effort making your videos. 🙂

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome and thanks so much for watching

[@culebradiver]

Saved my butt again Reza... quick, concise, spot-on help. You Rock!

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@god_hacker581]

Great video as always. Lots of learning. Thanks for your efforts and time, very nice step-by-step presentation.

[@RezaDorrani]

Many thanks!

[@PixSmith01]

This is really one of the most helpful tutorials on Sharepoint that I have seen. Thanks for all the incremental steps as well. It helps to prevent issues in my particular case, and I appreciate the clarity and excellent teaching.

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome!

[@nilotpal81]

The video was super helpful and it helped me build the same for my work. Thank you so much for preparing and sharing the video.

[@RezaDorrani]

You are most welcome!

[@CheapCheerful]

Reza, you are the Power Automate / Power Apps KING!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You so much. Content is 👑

[@alejandrorodriguezgarcia4534]

You made my day! thanks for this great video Reza, greetings from Argentina😀

[@RezaDorrani]

Happy to hear that! Have a great day!

[@raitup00]

Many topics were covered! Amazing video!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You

[@MohammadAli-ts2ev]

A great video once again.. thank u so much Reza for the efforts you would have put in...

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks so much

[@dhofstra]

Thank you very much for this video, excellent work! I have a large excel file (4000+ rows) that would have taken several hours for this exact method to update every row each day. In my scenario, only a few dozen cells change each day in the Excel Spreadsheet, so not every one of the 4000+ rows really needed to update each day. As a solution, I created a Data connection in my Excel file which pulls down the SP List. Then I created 3 Merges in PowerQuery for Excel, which produced 3 separate Tables. One table contains items that need to be "Added to Sharepoint", another table contains items that need to be "Deleted from Sharepoint", and the 3rd table contains items which need to be "Updated in Sharepoint". From there I used the concepts in Reza's video to create 3 parallel branches of "Apply to Each" in PowerAutomate: "Create item", "Update Item", and "Delete Item". Only updating the rows where a change has been made has worked flawlessly and only takes about 4 minutes to run each day.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for sharing David!

[@danielmartins5327]

Reza you're the best!!!!! thanks a lot for this video.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You!

[@bylaker]

very good example! I am looking for this since yesterday! thank you!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Lyriks_]

Best tutorial on excel automation i've seen

[@RezaDorrani]

Wow! Thank You!

[@Summane]

Hello Reza, Your videos have been so helpful to build Power Apps & Power Automate. Thanks So much

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that!

[@carlw]

WOW! Best setup explanation E.V.E.R. Thanks Reza, you delivered it in a simple, easy to understand way in describing the nomenclature and syntax. I learned about a lot of other facets to data connections.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for the awesome feedback. You are most welcome!

[@sksachingupta1]

really .its very good example to check duplicate /existing items and update status.

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad you liked it

[@rupatron7]

Reza, big Thank you for what you do and teach, I really appreciate it. You are a great and expert trainer.

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@user-eg4qu1lp9k]

Every video you make is so thorough and helpful! Thank you for making these videos!

[@RezaDorrani]

You’re most welcome

[@j_ribeiro8109]

Congrats Reza, very useful content. You are the bested at Power Platform. I'll study and try do it. Tks a lot

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome!

[@diltoncesarjunior1848]

@@RezaDorrani Please every time I run my flow (until Create item), it duplicates the items. I have 02 items at my excel and is created 04 items at SP List. My SP List has only columns text. Could you give a hint, please?

[@RezaDorrani]

@@diltoncesarjunior1848 I have not experienced this issue. I will recommend checking or posting your query on forums in case someone has experienced something similar powerusers.microsoft.com

[@josephj6356]

Was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

[@RezaDorrani]

Your most welcome

[@adamshrinah2595]

As usual, super informative video. THANKS

[@RezaDorrani]

You’re most welcome

[@anpesworld]

Thank you Reza. Always great tutorial and easy to follow

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that!

[@jamief3592]

Your videos are brilliant. Very helpful

[@nelsickDranar]

Hola Reza, pero que excelente tutorial siguiendo tus videos he podido aprender mucho sobre powerapps y power automate gracias por compartir tu conocimiento y explicar tan bien!

[@RezaDorrani]

bienvenido

[@shaikhfirdos2723]

Most useful... special for Lookup and all type column... Thanks Reza..

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome!

[@Sunilprakashsabbithi]

Awsome work and as i said for your earlier videos, you are my best mentor for Power platform...😀😀😀

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that

[@TanishaBates-cr8oq]

Hi Reza, this is awesome and helped me immensely! You rock!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad it helped!

[@angelicakabigting3903]

Amazing tutorials! Thanks a lot!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks Angelica

[@renatoshimabukuro8037]

What a lesson! Thank you so much for the video!

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@babukurapati80]

Thank you for your time and really helpful Reza!!

[@RezaDorrani]

My pleasure!

[@smaheen]

Great tutorial. The best thing this is a professional tutorial.. Everything explain well.

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad you think so! Thanks so much for watching.

[@smaheen]

@@RezaDorrani I remember I saw one of your video about Master Detail like invoice data entry in powerapp.. Do you have that link. i tried to find but cant find it. thanks

[@RezaDorrani]

@@smaheen Honestly I do not remember:) Check playlists on my channel.

[@alancave4117]

This is so great. At the end you talked about creating a success or failure log, and I wonder if there is another video showing how to do that? Thanks again for great content.

[@RezaDorrani]

I do not have a specific video reference on that. Idea would be to add error handling to the actions using (configure run after) to track items which passed vs failed and accordingly log them in a list or excel file.

[@gelezinkelisnbb8561]

Thank you. This helped me. Exactly what I was looking for.

[@RezaDorrani]

Great to hear!

[@19hebo89]

Great video, which solved all of my problems. Well, at least all of my Power Automate problems. 😀

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad it helped!

[@shivabkumar7999]

top class video, Reza. Awesome, keep it going.!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks Shiva

[@garimatewari111]

Amazing video. You have covered all the possible scenarios.

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that

[@paulbruen3108]

Brilliant video - really useful - thanks for posting.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for watching and liking

[@rajeshappu7922]

Amazing video, Thanks for the wonderful explanation

[@RezaDorrani]

My pleasure

[@operationsstaraviation4636]

Reza ! You are the best !

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You 😊

[@gustavomonne4921]

Great video Reza, you game me a lot of tips and ideas.

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear it!

[@rddslt]

This is excellent. Thank you!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for watching

[@TheMKTube]

And there I was thinking oh I know how to do that before watching the video lol, amazing content Reza!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for watching. I did a lot of research before making this video :) I wanted to ensure I cover all bases.

[@MenPoriyaalan]

this is absolute brilliant work.. thank you so much for sharing it

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks so much

[@jahannathvarshan6529]

Very well explained and worked like charm

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks

[@mahalakshmidevarajan6656]

I am learning always from your video😀

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that

[@WomanInTechnology]

SOO Helpful!!!!! Thank you SOO MUCH!!!

[@ion669]

Thank you again for another excellent presentation.

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@ion669]

@@RezaDorrani You are so fast replying! I wanted to edit my comment and add a question which is whether one can have multiple sheets on the excel file and if so how does one would direct power automate to refer to that specific Sheet?

[@RezaDorrani]

@@ion669 Add multiple tables in multiple sheets. And then replicate the logic in flow.

[@sandeepcrush]

Welcome to Reza University on Power Platform :), these are immensely helpful

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks Sandeep

[@johng5295]

Thanks in a million.Great content.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for watching

[@SamTheMan0319]

God bless you bro. You've helped me so much!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to help

[@geba3uer]

Reza you are the best, thanks

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You :)

[@robh2489]

Excellent video, much apprecaited.

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome

[@saifkazi8504]

Outstanding video I have never seen such a thing before..

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You :)

[@TheMattmulherin]

Excellent work Thanks!

[@RezaDorrani]

Many thanks!

[@laminepilor5754]

Thank you for your knowlege sharing! It lavarage our skills a lots

[@RezaDorrani]

My pleasure!

[@sosinamezemir2612]

Thank You , Ready for March Demo

[@RezaDorrani]

Absolutely! Ready for it 🔥

[@vrundadanatkar1467]

Really helpful 👍 Thank you .

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad it was helpful!

[@gunasekaran4288]

This is what expected few months.. great Reza. You are masterpiece in this industry...

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You!

[@Mimi-po2rj]

Very helpful 👌 thank you.

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad it was helpful!

[@3Starsgamer34]

Hi Reza, thanks for the quality content. Big fan of you. I have some suggestions like 1. Instead of adding 6 minutes delay, add "do untill" for file check out, if it fail I add 1 minute delay if success, go ahead. It will reduce flow run time. As files which are Not checked out need not to wait for 6 minutes 2. You have handled dates columns by converting to UTC and then again additional helper column in templates, I usually updates excel dates using addDays formula in flow to update sharepoint list which I found more convenient. Adding helper column may not be possible for many cases. Like My users get data from on premises application export to excel which is used to update SP List. 3. In your case as you are using templates so it will not be applicable in your used case , but I do check if excel file has table or not.

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for watching & liking my videos. 1 - I believe the list rows present in a table action does lock file ASAP and that delay would be needed. However, no harm in checking file lock status every minute. A better approach would be to let all files process and then at the end wait for 6 minutes and update status of each file. 2 - You could do those calculations in flow as well. The goal of the video was to keep content to 100-200 level and there is a reason why I showcased things in a particular order :) 3 - Typically such scenarios do include a template with defined columns. I did a video on dynamic tables in excel. Check kzbin.info/www/bejne/gabTq2pnmbyMr7s

[@3Starsgamer34]

@@RezaDorrani thanks for your views...

[@marcelocpereira123]

God Job!!! Phenomenal!!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thank You!

[@chunweitan9133]

Thank you, Reza, for such a wonderful video. I would like to learn more about setting up the Failure Log step-by-step. Wondering if there is a video on that topic. Thank you.

[@RezaDorrani]

Most welcome! I dont have a step by step video on that.

[@jayo3074]

This is so useful!

[@RezaDorrani]

Glad to hear that! Thanks for watching.

[@satyasaichaitanya1265]

Asusual Reza You rocked it 🤗🤗

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks

[@janhogerwerf3427]

Great! Have exactly the same solution in place here and works well.

[@RezaDorrani]

Cool, thanks

[@javierbarrera4935]

Reza - great job on content, structure and editing! Really the best I've seen on the topic. I don't know how many times I've watched portions of video now to help set up my first flows to have Sharepoint Lists function as filtered "mirrors" of excel workbooks. Did a bit of tweaking to your video as I didn't need to make uses of the dynamic portion. Has been helpful to use the lists to springboard with PowerApps to look up content. Well done! Question for you though - what would be your recommended methodology during the update item step (item already exists in Sharepoint list), that would only update fields that were changed, and leave the others alone. If nothing changed, would skip that item all together. I'm running the flow daily, and everyday it updates every item and every field whether or not there have been changes. Any guidance would be great!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for the awesome feedback! Update item step - To only perform an update if any change was made in excel, you would have to query SharePoint to grab that specific item and do a comparison of all the fields (a lot more work).

[@dongduongphuong1241]

Awesome as usual Reza! Lots of helpful information. I'm still new to Power Apps / Power Automate and kind of developing an upload Excel file function for users to add / update the data using your flow. However, I just wonder the pros and cons of using Dataverse instead of SharePoint list as in the video. Not sure if I can apply all of your steps for Dataverse or any potential downsides.

[@RezaDorrani]

There is no potential downsides. In fact Dataverse has dataflows which allow you to import data from almost any service to Dataverse.

[@izzieZii]

Hi Reza, first let me thank you for your exceptional videos. I’ve learned so much just by following your examples. I am struggling a lot with the opposite scenario, ‘Add & update SharePoint List to Excel using Power Automate’. I’ve searched for hours and hours and tried a million options but so far, I couldn’t figure out out to add multiple people (people picker) into excel with only one entry. I managed to do it but it always adds a row for each person on the record. Any help would be appreciated and I’ll be eternally grateful!

[@RezaDorrani]

Thanks for watching and liking the videos. I do not have a video reference on this scenario and would have to try it out to provide guidance. I would recommend posting your issue/query with screenshots on the forums at powerusers.microsoft.com

[@izzieZii]

@@RezaDorrani Thank you so much for getting back to me! I will use the link provided for future questions! And I have so many! I’ve managed to solve this particular problem though, now having a million more! Thank you again, Reza! I couldn’t be where I’m at if it wasn’t for you and your videos.