Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hi Team,

We are facing an issue with Copilot Studio where SharePoint-based knowledge (Excel QnA files) is not being picked up correctly during test execution, resulting in fallback responses overriding valid instruction-based outputs.

Setup:

We are using Copilot Studio with a routing agent (Tigo One) and connected parent agents.
The HR agent is configured as a resolver (not a router).
Knowledge source is SharePoint (Excel-based QnA files).
Example files:
- Employee_Benefits_Payroll_QA
- Holidays_QA

Scenario:

User asks: "what are my benefits"
This should trigger:
- Clarification logic → ask: "Which country would you like information for?"
We have explicitly defined this behavior in agent instructions.

What we implemented:

Added generic QnA rows in Excel:
- Question: "what are my benefits"
- Answer: "Which country would you like information for?"
- Country: blank / Global
- Keywords: benefits, employee benefits, etc.

Expected Behavior:

The agent should return:

"Which country would you like information for?"

Actual Behavior:

The clarification response briefly appears internally (in reasoning),
But final output shows:

"No information was found that could help answer this."
It seems fallback is overriding the intended response.

Observations:

Even after updating the Excel file and waiting several minutes, behavior does not change.
New test sessions were used.
It appears the updated knowledge is not being indexed or retrieved.
The agent does not return the clarification question as final output.

Questions:

How frequently does SharePoint knowledge get re-indexed in Copilot Studio?
Is there a way to force refresh/re-index knowledge sources?
Can fallback responses override instruction-driven outputs even when logic is correct?
Are there any requirements for Excel QnA structure (columns, formatting, matching rules) that might affect retrieval?

Any guidance on ensuring that updated SharePoint knowledge is correctly picked up and prevents fallback override would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Categories:

Bot administration

Hi @CU13021724-0,

There are two separate problems here and it's worth addressing both.

Problem 1: Excel is not a reliable knowledge source

This is almost certainly why your knowledge isn't being retrieved. Microsoft docs and community testing both confirm that Excel files index significantly less reliably than Word or PDF in Copilot Studio. The same tabular content placed in a DOCX or PDF will index correctly where the XLSX version is skipped entirely, even when both files are in the same SharePoint folder. Microsoft explicitly notes that Excel is supported but responses to structured data queries may not be optimal.

Convert your QnA files to Word (.docx) or PDF and re-add them as knowledge. That alone is likely to fix the retrieval issue.

Problem 2: Knowledge is the wrong place for clarification logic

Even if the Excel files were indexed correctly, using a QnA row to return "Which country would you like information for?" is not how this should work. Knowledge sources are designed to return answers, not to drive conversational branching. The agent retrieved the answer from reasoning (you can see it in the internal trace) but the generative model then couldn't use it as a final response because it's not structured as an answer to the user's question, it's a question itself.

The clarification logic should live in a Topic, not in the knowledge base:
- Create a topic triggered by phrases like "benefits", "what are my benefits"
- Add a Question node: "Which country would you like information for?"
- Based on the answer, call a Generative Answers node with a more specific query like "benefits [country]" against your knowledge source

This gives you the clarification flow reliably without depending on the knowledge retrieval to return a question.

Your questions:

1. Re-indexing frequency: automatic, asynchronous, no confirmed fixed schedule. Can take minutes to hours. No manual trigger available.
2. Force refresh: not possible. Removing and re-adding the knowledge source is the closest thing to forcing a re-index.
3. Can fallback override correct logic: yes. If the knowledge retrieval returns no usable content, the fallback fires regardless of what was in the internal reasoning trace.
4. Excel format requirements: Excel is supported but not first-class. Word or PDF is significantly more reliable for retrieval.

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-add-sharepoint

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-unstructured-data

Best regards,

Valantis

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