Alteration of stored procedure containing loop is taking too long - sql-server

Question

I didn't find any appropriate solution for my problem so I want to ask here if someone could help me.
I have a stored procedure named spImportWord which downloads word files from a file location on another server to a local folder and saves values from each word file to a table in the database. For each file I'm calling a console application that saves the files to the local folder. For downloading I'm using a while loop. Before I used a cursor but as far as I know you should stay away from cursors.
Since I changed from cursor to while I can't even alter my stored procedure. It takes an eternity to finish. Is there any way to improve my stored procedure? (Note: With the cursor the SP could be altered but execution displayed that the subquery returned more than 1 value etc.)
My code so far:
ALTER PROCEDURE spImportWord
#fileId INT
AS
DECLARE #cmd VARCHAR(200)
DECLARE #filename VARCHAR(200)
DECLARE #foldername VARCHAR(200)
DECLARE #year VARCHAR(200)
DECLARE #remotePath VARCHAR(MAX)
DECLARE #localPath VARCHAR(MAX)
DECLARE #organisationId INT
DECLARE #folderId INT
DECLARE #import TABLE(ImportId INT)
DECLARE #counter INT
SELECT #filename = Files.FileName
, #foldername = Files.FolderName
FROM Files WHERE Files.FileId = #fileId
CREATE TABLE #organisation ([OrganisationId] INT, [FolderId] INT, [Year] VARCHAR(4) NULL)
INSERT INTO #organisation
SELECT [tabInstitution].[OrganisationId]
, [tabInstitution].[FolderId]
, [tabInstitution].[UploadDate] AS [Year]
FROM [tabInstitution]
SET #organisationId = 0
SET #counter = 0
WHILE (#counter <= (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM #organisation))
BEGIN
SELECT #organisationId = MIN([#organisation].[OrganisationId])
, #folderId = [#organisation].[FolderId]
, #year = [#organisation].[Year]
FROM [#organisation]
WHERE [#organisation].[OrganisationId] > #organisationId
GROUP BY [FolderId], [Year]
SET #remotePath = '\\somepath.path.com\somefolder\' + #organisationId + '\' + #folderId + '\' + #filename + '.docx'
SET #localPath = 'C:\Files\' + #year + '\' + #foldername + '\' + #organisationId + '.docx'
SET #cmd = 'C:\App\ImportWordFiles.exe --SourcePath ' + #remotePath + ' --TargetPath ' + #localPath
EXEC xp_cmdshell #cmd, no_output
-- Log into database
INSERT INTO WordImport
OUTPUT Inserted.ImportId INTO #import
VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT INTO WordImportItem
VALUES((SELECT ImportId FROM #import), #organisationId, #folderId, #localPath)
SET #counter = #counter + 1
END
Instead of the while loop I had before:
DECLARE MY_CURSOR CURSOR LOCAL STATIC READ_ONLY FORWARD_ONLY
FOR
SELECT [#organisation].[OrganisationId]
, [#organisation].[FolderId]
, [#organisation].[Year]
FROM [#organisation]
OPEN MY_CURSOR
FETCH NEXT FROM MY_CURSOR INTO #organisationId, #folderId, #year
WHILE ##FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
[...]
FETCH NEXT FROM MY_CURSOR INTO #organisationId, #folderId, #year
END
I hope I explained my question understandable.

Answer 1

You know, you should really understand the reasons why cursors are considered bad. In your case, there's no reason not to use cursors, and in fact, your while solution is much uglier anyway.
As for your "subquery problem", (SELECT ImportId FROM #import) is to blame - you're continuously adding rows to #import, and the subquery returns all the ImportIds, not just the last one (or whatever). That will fail once #import has more than a single row. It's hard to tell what exactly you're trying to do - I assume you're just trying to get the last inserted ID, and there's no point in maintaining a whole table of all the import IDs. Just delete all the data from #import after you read it.