Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

I’m working on a PowerApps-based ticketing system where users submit service requests stored in an Excel file. Power Automate is used to send email notifications when a new request is created.

Initially, I stored the Excel file in OneDrive and connected it to PowerApps and Power Automate. However, I ran into a major issue. When Power Automate runs, it locks the Excel file, preventing users from submitting new tickets in PowerApps. I have to wait for a while before I can create a new request. It seems like PowerApps and Power Automate can’t access the Excel file at the same time.

To fix this, I moved the Excel file to SharePoint and used the Excel Online (Business) connector in PowerApps. During the connection setup, I was asked to select a Unique ID for each table. For the "ServiceRequests" table, I set RequestID as the unique identifier. However, after doing this, I started getting a new error:

❌ Error in SharePoint:
"Error when trying to retrieve data from the network: Expression 'RequestID eq null' is not supported."

This issue didn’t occur when using OneDrive, but now it’s happening with SharePoint. Additionally, I’ve noticed performance warnings in SharePoint, saying that errors might occur with large datasets.

🔹 What I Need Help With:

1️⃣ Is there a way to prevent the Excel file from getting locked in OneDrive while Power Automate is running?
2️⃣ If SharePoint is the better option, how do I fix the ‘RequestID eq null’ error in PowerApps?
3️⃣ Which is the best approach for handling PowerApps and Power Automate workflows efficiently—OneDrive or SharePoint?

Categories:

Building Power Apps

let me try to help

1️⃣ Is there a way to prevent the Excel file from getting locked in OneDrive while Power Automate is running?

It depends on what scenario is causing the lock. Normally you have to place a Wait statement, sometimes up to 10 minutes, when doing a create or update, move, delete etc. I am not sure what scenario you mean, but also if you have many people using it at once, then you are pretty much going to get this happening no matter what, which means auto-retries, error handling, waits etc.

2️⃣ If SharePoint is the better option, how do I fix the ‘RequestID eq null’ error in PowerApps?

Can you please share your excel, so we can validate that that Column exists? Also, do all rows have data, are you positive?

3️⃣ Which is the best approach for handling PowerApps and Power Automate workflows efficiently—OneDrive or SharePoint?

So the question is too open ended. I do not even know what to answer. What does efficiently OneDrive or SharePoint mean? In what context?