same Excel output file for multiple workflows..

Question

I am using  excel file as  OUTPUT and same excel file used for multiple workflows. If all the workflows runs at same time, will that update all the workflows information ?  all the workflow output should be captured, it shouldn't override. How can we achieve this?

Ladarthure · Answer

Hi @arkimp,

if you try to write to the same excel file with multiple workflows workflows running at the same time. You may encounter different situations:

* Writing on the same tab* if your workflow A writes and the B tries to write at the same time, it might not work and you may encounter the error saying that the file is still open somewhere.
* if workflow A writes first and then B tries to write and you want to write under what was written by workflow A, you can use the output option Append to existing sheet

* writing on different tabs* only limitation here is you don't want those workflows to end at the same time so that both workflows don't try to "open" excel at the same time

One workaround would be to combine both workflows into one (if possible) and you could use the crew macro parallel block until done which will do the trick.

If you can't merge workflows, you could also use a third one which will output to excel.

Hope it helped!

IraWatt · Answer

Hey @arkimp,

you can definitely write to the same excel file without overwriting anything. For instance append to sheet will just add the new data to the bottom of the sheet. Have you encountered any issues writing to the same file?