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Excel as backend, ignore file in use warning and write anyway

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Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

Hi,

I am creating an app with Excel as a backend, I would like to be able to use the app to create new records in any of the linked tables in my excel file while having that file opened in excel online (I want to be able to edit a different worksheet in the same file - just a data range, no table on that sheet).

However, the app complains about the file being locked (I understand this is a safety precaution), however, I would like to ignore this error and write to the excel file anyways(so even if I have it open).

There is no way that this could corrupt the data as the tables that I linked are on different sheets, is there a way to tell PowerApps to ignore this restriction and write anyways?

Thank you

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Building Power Apps

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RandyHayes 76,299 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Anonymous

No. PowerApps expects the Excel file to be its exclusive datasource. It should not be interacted with or altered after it is connected as a DataSource. If you want some form of what you are doing, you can have a separate Excel file that has a data connection to your PowerApps Excel file. This way you will get the data in your other Excel file and can have it open and edit all you want while still keeping the primary data source closed and exclusive to PowerApps.

I hope this is helpful for you.
Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Well, thanks. I thought this was impossible, had to make sure anyways. I suppose I will have to create a separate excel and connect it to the PowerApps excel file, unfortunately, this is something I really do not want as refreshing these files online is basically impossible.