Sharepoint Not Fetching Live Data in Copilot Studio

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Posted on by CU01090731-3

I have a published agent that uses sharepoint as the Knowledge base, When users upload a new document to the sharepoint, they notice it takes a delay before they can access the file. The delay is an issue, but even the inconsistency is a bigger issue, some are able to access it before others, currently someone haven't been able to access it for more than 3 days.

Has someone experienced this, and if yes, any suggestion on possible resolution. Also the bot is currently published in teams. And the user access it via teams.

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Sam_Fawzi 1,150 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hey @CU01090731-3.

SharePoint knowledge does not keep its own index. It queries Microsoft Search over the SharePoint index at runtime, security trimmed to the calling user. So you have two stacked delays: crawl and index of the file, then ACL propagation to each user's trimmed view. The second one is why some users see it and others do not. Three days is outside normal and usually means the user's access is not resolving at all rather than still catching up.
Quickest test to split the problem: have an affected user search for the file directly in SharePoint or the Microsoft 365 search bar. If they cannot find it there either, the agent is behaving correctly and the issue is upstream in search or permissions.

Then check, in order:

How the user's access is granted. Entra security group membership propagates to the search index on its own schedule and is the usual cause of one user lagging others by days.

Site settings, Search and offline availability, Reindex site. Also confirm the library is not excluded from search, which is a per library setting.

Copilot license on the affected user. SharePoint knowledge sources require one, and a missing license fails silently in a way that looks like an indexing delay.

Design point: if freshness matters, do not rely on knowledge retrieval for new uploads. Add a tool that calls SharePoint directly, get file content or a Graph query, so the agent reads the document on demand regardless of index state. Knowledge sources are for broad grounding, not for the file someone uploaded ten minutes ago.
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chiaraalina 2,553 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Hi @CU01090731-3

Which option did you choose when you created the agent? They look similar but are different.

Option 1 (Upload files › SharePoint) copies files into Dataverse with a 4–6 hour sync.

Option 2 (SharePoint in Featured / SharePoint connector) queries SharePoint's live search index - "(near) real time, and reflects the latest available content." (only uses top 3 hits)

Also documented here: Unstructured data as a knowledge source - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn

If you don't remember which one you chose, check this:

Hope it helps!
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Mohsin Ali 1,073 on at

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Hello @CU01090731-3 - This can happen depending on how SharePoint was added as the knowledge source.

If you're using the Upload files > SharePoint option, the content isn't fetched live. Microsoft documents that synchronization and reindexing can take around 4–6 hours.

However, waiting more than three days is not expected. I would check whether the knowledge source is showing as Ready and confirm which SharePoint connection method you're using. If it continues to stay stale after that long, I would recommend opening a Microsoft support ticket.

Please refer following document to learn about further details.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-unstructured-data
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11manish 4,802 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Hours of delay can be expected depending on the SharePoint knowledge configuration; 3+ days plus user-to-user inconsistency is not normal enough to accept as “just indexing.” First prove whether the difference occurs in SharePoint Search, Copilot Studio, or Teams. If SharePoint is healthy and the issue remains user-specific in the agent, escalate it as a Copilot Studio SharePoint retrieval problem.