Automate Bulk Excel Data Loads in Power Automate with Graph API – Fast, No Apply to Each!

Supercharge your workflow automation by bulk-loading thousands of records into Excel—without the slow Excel connector! Discover how to leverage Power Automate and Microsoft Graph API for lightning-fast data population from any source, including SharePoint, Dataverse, Power BI, SQL, or external APIs. If you’re tired of tedious “apply to each” loops and want true digital transformation, this tutorial is for you.

In this friendly, step-by-step guide, you’ll see exactly how to create and fill Excel files in seconds using cloud flows and low-code techniques. Whether you’re a Power Platform pro or a citizen developer, you’ll learn how to bypass common bottlenecks, handle dynamic data ranges, and even add custom headers—no RPA or Office Scripts required. Real-world use cases and troubleshooting tips are included, so you can confidently apply these methods to your own business process automation projects.

What You’ll Learn:
✔️ Build a Power Automate flow that creates and populates Excel files using Graph API
✔️ Automate bulk data transfers from SharePoint, Dataverse, Power BI, or any API into Excel
✔️ Dynamically handle column headers, data ranges, and formulas for maximum flexibility
✔️ Accelerate digital transformation and hyperautomation with no-code/low-code tools

Timestamps:
00:00 – Instantly Load Bulk Data into Excel Without the Excel Connector
01:06 – Flow Overview: Scopes, Data Sources, and Structure
02:42 – Creating and Populating Excel Files Fast with Graph API
03:33 – Deep Dive: Flow History, Performance, and Results
07:46 – Editing the Flow: Expressions, Dynamic Ranges, and Tips
13:53 – Switching Data Sources: SharePoint, Power BI, and More
19:06 – Wrap-Up and Next Steps

#PowerAutomate #workflowautomation #PowerPlatform #LowCode #DigitalTransformation

Ready to ditch slow manual data entry? Try this approach and let me know in the comments how it works for your team—or what data sources you’d like to automate next! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and check the description for more Power Platform resources and downloads.

Additional Links:

🫠 About me:
👋 Hi, I'm Damien Bird — Power Platform Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft ☁️
🧠 Former Forum Super User (2021/22) & Business Applications MVP (2022)
🎤 Speaker at conferences across Europe, the US, and local UK user groups
💡 Passionate about sharing knowledge, solving problems, and empowering the community with the Power Platform!

📚 Explore more:

[emmanuelmaceda]

"... in a matter of seconds"... that phrase when you use Power Automate is ❤‍🔥🎶🤩

[apodostroiec]

Una vez mas, Damo y sus increibles videos.... me ayudaron a solucionar el problema con Graph API. La parte del SELECT para convertir un array de objetos en un array de arrays, es la clave de todo. Muchas gracias como siempre, Damo!

[michelhegeraat]

There is so much that can be done with the graph API, but you really need to know how. That documentation that MS provides is not what it should be. And the API's, even the ones just for sharepoint are clearly made by different teams with a different vision. Once you "see" how to get certain data, only then you can start experimenting with what can be done.
It is thanks to people like you, that properly explain the working with some examples, that I use these API's.

[aescamilla]

Very enlightening Damien, I used your example and adapted to updating two Excel tables, it's worth noting that using Tables eliminates the need for the range definition, so that's an up-side for me as I have more than 26 columns. Keep up the good work and thanks again for sharing 😀

[GaryCarmen]

As always, great video Damien. I am going to start calling you 'Nate' (No Apply To Each). I try to advocate to our firm not to use an apply to each where possible, looks a bit more scary to the basic user, but has so many benefits, mainly the slowness issues you alluded too. Power Automate simply fails when you try to write too many rows to Excel using an apply to each.

[sandrasoniec]

Need to try this out for my flows that run into action limits with larger data sets. Thanks for sharing. Damien

Great Demo Damien. 💪Well explained as always. I like how you build those demos on top of your previous videos. So much appreciated for showcasing real live use cases how you can get that data with Graph API in an more efficient way instead of looping through those array objects with Apply_to_Each. One API to rule them All 💍🚀👍🏻

[davidcampling]

Hi Damien, Another excellent video tutorial. I managed to follow along and it took me a little time to get to grips with the new functionality of Graph API. I loved the way the dynamic cell range works and in the create file scope I added a create table at the end which referenced the dynamic range. One thing I hadn't considered was the pagination setting on the "List Rows present in a table ". Previously I had been working with excels below 256 rows. But I have learned another key lesson there. I had one question. Is there a way / expression that would allow me to put the excel which is produced at a sub level within my SharePoint site. It's not a deal breaker for me as I can use a move file action after the last scope. And how quick is the Flow! Anyway, really enjoy your content and delivery. Keep up the good work!

[erinfield]

Damo, do you have a video on filling in a particular CELL of an Excel online document? A bunch of us all fill in certain cells of a tracking sheet that we have in common on Sharepoint, depending on when certain documents arrive in our e-mail. I want to automate the filling in of my cells with a Power Automate button (in Power BI). How can i get Power Automate to search for a loan number in column A, then go over to column D, for example, and mark that as received (with today's date)? Thanks!

[Akashsingh-rqvg]

If you do $A1:$E1 that should dynamically update rows based on the number or rows from the response @10:56

[rickychen]

Thanks for the informative video Damien. I've been struggling with the slowness of "Apply to Each". I have a nested JSON array that has been parsed after I did a third-party API call. I wanted to insert the data into a SQL table. How do you avoid apply to each action then? Using Select action to choose them field within the sub-array will automatically lead to a few Apply to each created.

[antonindelbart]

Hi Damien, Thanks a lot for your video, I am struggling to apply your tutorial to my requirement, I am trying to export data from microsift Graph and then write all record in my excel but when I am doing the select option, Power automate put automatically an apply each, how can I apply to my requirement your solution ?

[susmithareddy]

Thanks for this valuble content Demo Damien, I have a doubt " How to store the datetime in ISO format as a string in share point list using logic apps eg. If my date is "2023-03-01T10:20:30Z" or "2023-03-01T10:20:30+01:00", the create item block in logic app is converting the datetime string to "03/01/2023 10:20:30" or "03/01/2023 01:20:30". I want to store it as "2023-03-01T10:20:30Z" or "2023-03-01T10:20:30+01:00" in sharepoint through logic app. Can you please help me in this?

[gversluis]

Fantastic video Damien, thanks! Been struggling with this for quite a while, and that battle just got cut short. I do have one question... How do I clear a cell? Apparently, setting a null value won't help and I don't want to enter spaces either.

[einfachmachengmbh]

This is an amazing method. Will try this tomorrow 🎉. Thank you so much!

Is it also possible to format the excel spreadsheet?
I’m currently using the apply to each method and populating a table template, which gets send to a person afterwards.
The people are known to the styling and Color schmemes of tables in excel. Can I use this quick method but also format the spreadsheet visually in a nice way for my users?

[analiliae.z]

I Damien, I had whatched many of your videos and I've learned so much. In this case I was able to recreate the first part, I mean to create the excel file with the compose array info, but I'm having issues when I try to use the get items option, the issue comes when I try to compose the Cell range, I use this expresion: A1:chunk(outputs('ComposeAlphabet'), 1)?[sub(length(first(outputs('Compose_Union'))), When running the flow I can see that the cell range is created, but when i tried to use it in the Http request to load the data in excel I received errors, for example: The argument is invalid or missing or has an incorrect format or that The number of rows or columns in the input array doesn't match the size or dimensions of the range.Thanks in advanced for any suggestion!

[austinsaldanha]

Great video, Damien! Thanks. I am trying to create a daily log for Twilio messages using flow, but your example has a static input of 1000 rows. The number of rows may be dynamic i.e. 10 or 1000 rows in my case. Is it possible for you to create a demo flow using such a dynamic input and still create a dynamic log? Thanks.

[user-h]

Can you create video on how to send attachment(more than 2) from one outlook email to another outlook email.

[coolboy]

Hello, How do I get the URL of the process "Send an http request GetSiteID"?(What I want to do:
After the data is retrieved from the database, it needs to be written into onedrive's excel)

[AceFx-jtgn]

Hi, I wanted to know that if I am not using sharepoint for creating the file instead I am using OneDrive to create the file then what will be the api URI?