CODEWITHSUNDEEP
excelmicrosoft-graph-api
rvanlaarhoven
rvanlaarhoven

Reputation: 865

Microsoftgraph Excel calculation without modifying file

I have an Excel file that calculates a product advise based on several input variables. To use this in a web application and let users define the input variables I want to use the Microsoft graph Excel API, but can't figure out if it's possible to make the calculations without actually copying & modifying the original Excel file.

Currently I got a workaround solution that requires three API calls to do this:

Obviously this is not the desired solution, but I cannot find any easier solution in the documentation. Is there anyway to improve this process?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 446

Answers (1)

Sudhi Ramamurthy
Sudhi Ramamurthy

Reputation: 2478

As long as your calculation depends only on the existing state (pre-defined templates, formulas) of the workbook, you can just have 1 copy of the file in the drive and re-use for many calculations without saving the document. Essentially, you can use Excel file as a calc-engine and use the resulting values from updates.

For this, you'd need to create a session that doesn't save updates before making any API call to modify data.

POST /{version}/me/drive/items/01CYZLFJGUJ7JHBSZDFZFL25KSZGQTVAUN/workbook/createSession

Body:

{ "persistChanges": false }

Response:

{ "@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/{version}/$metadata#microsoft.graph.sessionInfo", "id": "{session-id}", "persistChanges": false }

The resulting session header should be attached in the following HTTP calls. As long as you do that, it doesn't save your changes.

on next calls, add HTTP header:

workbook-session-id: {session-id}

Note: you may run into session limitation on a given file. If you expect a lot of concurrent requests then you should make copies of the Excel file to distribute the load.

Upvotes: 1

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