Short Article: Azure Data Factory’s Copy Does not Support Excel as Destination

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As the title suggests, this will be a very short article.

If you were wondering why that newly created excel dataset does not show up as a sink option in ADF’s copy activity, it’s because ADF does not support excel file as a sink location. Below is the answer from Microsoft on this —

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1433046/can-excel-be-a-sink-in-azure-data-factory

What is the alternative?

If you have a use case where you need to copy an excel dataset from a data source to a destination, you can set your dataset as a binary dataset.

Specifying a binary dataset tells ADF not to parse the dataset but treat it the way it is in its original format. Create a binary sink dataset where the filename is parameterized. If you keep the filename ending with .xlsx, your dataset will be copied as a excel file to the destination.