Excel basic package

The Excel basic package contains actions that enable you to automate many of the repetitive tasks in XLSX workbooks. You use these actions when Microsoft Excel is not available on the device that you want to use to automate Microsoft Excel-related tasks.

Note: The XLS and CSV formats are not supported and you cannot set a value in the XFD column of a spreadsheet.

Important: If you use different versions of the Excel basic package in a parent bot and a child bot, the capability to share a session across bots is currently not supported. To share a session across parent and child bots, ensure that you use the same version of the package in both the parent and child bots.

Important: When you use Microsoft Excel Version 2208 and a bot tries to open an unprotected macro, a security warning is displayed indicating that the macros are blocked as they are not from a trusted source.

See Macros from the internet will be blocked by default in Office for more details.

Choosing the Excel package in Automation 360

Automation 360 includes packages to support three types of Microsoft Excel usage. For optimal results, use the package that corresponds to the type of Excel that is available on the device you are running bots on.

No Excel installed: If you do not have Microsoft Excel installed on the device on which you are running bots to automate Excel-related processes, use the Excel basic package.
Desktop Excel installed: If you have a desktop version of Microsoft Excel installed on your computer, use the Excel advanced package in your bots.
Online Office 365 Excel only: If you are using Microsoft Excel 365 on a web browser, use the Office 365 Excel package for automating tasks related to Excel.

Recommendation: For any bot automation use case that cannot be fulfilled by the Excel basic package, we recommend that you use the Excel advanced package. When you use that Excel basic package, you might experience limitations because of the Apache POI API that the package uses. Because of this, the Excel basic package has limited capability when compared to the Excel advanced package that uses the MS API.

To learn more, search for the Automating Excel Workbooks course in Automation Anywhere University: RPA Training and Certification (A-People login required).

Before you start

Perform the following actions within the Excel basic package as part of using the set of available actions:

Open the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that you want to read data from using the Open action.
Note: The Excel basic package supports files that are a maximum size of 30 MB.
You must associate the details of the file you want to use with a session name, and use the session name in the other actions in the Excel basic package, so that you do not have to provide the details of the file in those actions again.
Use the different actions available in the Excel basic package to automate the Microsoft Excel-related tasks.
After you have automated all the Microsoft Excel-related tasks, close the spreadsheet using the Close action.

Actions in the Excel basic package

The Excel basic package includes the following actions:


Action	Description
Close	See Close action.
Delete cells	. See Delete cells action.
Find	See Using Find action in Excel.
Get cell address	See Get cell address action.
Get column name	See Get column name action.
Get multiple cells	See Get multiple cells action.
Get row number	See Get row number action.
Get single cell	. See Get single cell action.
Go to cell	. See Go to cell action.
Open	See Using the Open action.
Replace	See Using the Replace action.
Save workbook	See Save workbook action.
Set cell	See Set cell action.
Switch to sheet	See Switch to sheet action.