Power BI to Power Automate CSV Export — Number Formatting Lost in Excel

[mohita98]

Hi community,

I’m using Power BI to trigger a Power Automate flow that generates a CSV file and sends it via email.

📌 Flow Structure:

• Power BI button trigger

• Create CSV table

• Send email with CSV attachment

- In Power BI, I’m using the following DAX measure to ensure my numbers are formatted:

DAX

Qty = VAR test = SUM(Table[Numeric_Col]) RETURN FORMAT(test, "#,##0.000")

This works perfectly within Power BI visuals — the numbers display with comma separators and three decimal places.

❗ Problem:
When the data is passed to Power Automate and the CSV is opened in Excel, the formatting is lost. For example:

• "1,234.000" becomes "1234" or even "1.234E+03"

• Excel interprets the data as General or Scientific format

• The visual formatting defined in Power BI doesn’t carry through

🎯 What I’m looking for:
A reliable way to preserve the number formatting from Power BI when generating and sending a CSV through Power Automate , especially so that Excel displays the values exactly as formatted (e.g., "1,234.000").

Has anyone faced this and found a consistent solution?

Thanks in advance!

[v-csrikanth]

Hi @mohita98 

I wanted to follow up since I haven't heard from you in a while. Have you had a chance to try the suggested solutions?
If your issue is resolved, please consider marking the post as solved. However, if you're still facing challenges, feel free to share the details, and we'll be happy to assist you further.
Looking forward to your response!

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ C Srikanth.

[v-csrikanth]

Hi @mohita98 

It's been a while since I heard back from you and I wanted to follow up. Have you had a chance to try the solutions that have been offered?
If the issue has been resolved, can you mark the post as resolved? If you're still experiencing challenges, please feel free to let us know and we'll be happy to continue to help!
Looking forward to your reply!

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ C Srikanth.

[v-csrikanth · Accepted solution]

Hi @mohita98 

Thank you for being part of the Microsoft Fabric Community.

In addition to @Deku, the proposed approach appears to effectively address your requirements.
Please chek the below points that might resolve your issue:

• Use a calculated column or a Power Query column, not a measure, to apply number formatting.
• Example DAX: Formatted_Qty = FORMAT(SUM(Table[Numeric_Col]), "#,##0.000")
• The FORMAT() function returns text, which is what you need for CSV export.
• In Power BI, make sure you're passing this formatted text field to Power Automate instead of the raw numeric field.
• In Power Automate, when using the "Create CSV table" action, choose the "Custom" option instead of "Automatic".

Manually map the column like this:

json

CopyEdit

{

"Qty": "@items('YourLoop')?['Formatted_Qty']"

}

• This ensures the CSV contains values like "1,234.000" as literal text strings.
• Excel will open the CSV and display the value exactly as it is, without converting it to scientific notation or removing commas.
• Avoid passing numeric fields directly into the CSV step, as Power Automate will treat them as numbers and Excel may auto-format them incorrectly.
• If needed, prefix the formatted string with an apostrophe (') to further force Excel to treat it as plain text.

If the above information helps you, please give us a Kudos and marked the Accept as a solution.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ C Srikanth.

[Deku]

You could cast the numbers to strings in power BI

[mohita98]

Hello @Deku ,

Thank you for your response! I did try casting the numbers to strings in Power BI using the FORMAT function.

Unfortunately, even after passing the formatted value as a string into Power Automate and generating the CSV, the formatting is still lost when I open the file in Excel. Excel auto-converts the value — removing comma separators or displaying it in scientific notation.

So this approach didn’t fully solve the issue.

Would appreciate any additional suggestions or workarounds!

Thanks again!

[alefyavyas]

Hi @mohita98 

I had a similar issue where my files was losing the formatting. The way i resolved it is I added a send email action after the file creation step. And add the file as an attachment to the email. The file format i keep csv and that comes through correct. 

Here is a link of article i reference - How to Create a CSV Table in Power Automate? [With Examples] - Enjoy SharePoint

Good luck !

[Deku]

Are you able to add an Apostrophe ' at the start of the string. This should stop the conversion and should not be visable