Create Automation based on an Excel/JSON File

Tommy_m2k8zl

Hello There! 

 

We have multiple products within our project, till today we were using excel to track all the activities(more than 60 tasks). The tasks start/end-date depends on the Go-Live and for now we had to set-up a really extensive automation, to generate all the tasks and to adjust the start/end-date based on the Go-Live date. 

Since we have few excels to track different products, we are looking for a way to create an automation based on the excel details we have already in place. Is it possible? If yes, how can we proceed?

 

Thank you all for your help and wish you an amazing day!  

Darryl Lee

Hi @Tommy -- Ooooh, yeah, that's tricky and cool, and I love/hate it!

At first I thought you might be able to do a "pull" from Jira, using Automation's Send web request action

But ugh, that would require Excel being able to "publish" data as JSON, which... while you can "create" JSON (Output Excel table data as JSON), I think you can only "publish" HTML: Share it: Embed an Excel workbook on your web page or blog from OneDrive 

But googling around, I thought of a different idea: What if Excel could "push" a web request to an Automation Webhook?

Yeah, that might work using the Excel WEBSERVICE function.

So right then. You'd need to update your Excel sheet so that when certain things change, it makes a WEBSERVICE call to an Automation triggered by a Webhook. You probably would need to add some conditions to look at the data that the Webhook receives, and if something changed (start/end date), etc. then you take action (update corresponding start/end date in the appropriate ticket.)

So, there's some thoughts. Let us know if you come up with something, or if you have questions about/problems with the Automation bits.