Microsoft Graph API Bulk Edit of Noncontiguous Rows in Excel - microsoft-graph-api

Question

I have a need to be able to edit multiple (10-20) noncontiguous rows in an Excel table via the Microsoft Graph API. My application receives a list of 10-20 strings as input. It then needs to be able to find the rows of data associated with those strings (they are all in the same column) and update each row (separate column) with different values. I am able to update the rows using individual PATCH requests that specify the specific row index to update, however, sending 10-20 separate HTTP requests is not sufficient due to performance reasons.
Here is what I have tried so far:
JSON batching. I created a JSON batch request where each request in the batch updates a row of data at a specific row index. However, only a few of the calls actually succeed while the rest of them fail due to being unable to acquire a lock to edit the Excel document. Using the dependsOn feature in JSON batching fixed the issue, but performance was hardly better than sending the update requests separately.
Concurrent PATCH requests. If I use multiple threads to make the PATCH requests concurrently I run into the same issue as above. A few of them succeed while the others fail as they can not acquire a lock to edit the Excel document.
Filtering/sorting the table in order to perform a range update on the specific rows currently visible. I was able to apply a table filter using the Microsoft Graph API, however, it appears that you can only define two criterion to filter on and I need to be able to filter the data on 10-20 different values. Thus it does not seem like I will be able to accomplish this using a range update since I cannot filter on enough values at the same time and the rows cannot be sorted in such a way that would leave them all in a contiguous block.
Is there any feature in the Microsoft Graph API I am not aware of that would enable me to do what I am proposing? Or any other idea/approach I am not thinking of? I would think that making bulk edits to noncontiguous rows in a range/table would be a common problem. I have searched through the API documentation/forums/etc. and cannot seem to find anything else that would help.
Any help/information in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

After much trial and error I was able to solve my problem using filtering. I stumbled across this readme on filter apply: https://github.com/microsoftgraph/microsoft-graph-docs/blob/master/api-reference/v1.0/api/filter_apply.md which has an example request body of:
{
"criteria": {
"criterion1": "criterion1-value",
"criterion2": "criterion2-value",
"color": "color-value",
"operator": {
},
"icon": {
"set": "set-value",
"index": 99
},
"dynamicCriteria": "dynamicCriteria-value",
"values": {
},
"filterOn": "filterOn-value"
}
}
Although this didn't help me immediately, it got me thinking in the right direction. I was unable to find any more documentation about how the request format works but I started playing with the request body until finally I got something working. I changed "values" to an array of String and "filterOn" to "values". Now rather than being limited to criterion1 and criterion2 I can filter on whatever values I pass in the "values" array.
{
"criteria": {
"values": [
"1",
"2",
"3",
"4",
"5"
],
"filterOn": "values"
}
}
After applying the filter I retrieve the visibleView range, which I discovered here: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/blogs/additions-to-excel-rest-api-on-microsoft-graph/, like this:
/workbook/tables('tableName')/range/visibleView?$select=values
Lastly, I perform a bulk edit on the visibleView range with a PATCH request like this:
/workbook/tables('tableName')/range/visibleView
and a request body with a "values" array that matches the number of columns/rows I am updating.
Unfortunately this simple task was made difficult by a lack of Microsoft Graph API documentation, but hopefully this information here is able to help someone else.