"Open" excel file via Power Automate

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Posted on by RM-30040732-0

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Hello!

Is it possible to "open" or sync an excel file via Power Automate??

My scenario: I have an MS Form to collect responses. We don't want to keep certain responses where a date within it has expired. I've used Power Automate to List rows present in a table, pull out relevant responses to delete, and delete them.

So far, so good.

My problem: The excel file associated with the MS Form and the responses does not refresh unless it is opened. This is not ideal as our team will not ever open this to check it but I want to use it as the source to pull out responses to delete based on the response entered within it.

How can I refresh/sync this data at the start of my flow run? I have tried using Power Automate to "Run script" within the excel file itself (Refresh All) - which appears to run successfully - but it is not actually syncing or refreshing the file to include any responses submitted since the file was last opened. If possible I want to avoid transferring response data from one file to another.

Any ideas?!

Thanks in advance!

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Building flows

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Tomac 4,048 Moderator on at

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Hi @RM-30040732-0

The proper way to work with form responses is to use the Microsoft Forms trigger and action:

You can then record the response in a specific Excel file or SP List to be referenced later, or work with the response directly.

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RM-30040732-0 545 on at

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Hi @tomac,

This is how I am using my Form and responses as I have other processes that happen when someone submits a Form - but my question really concerns retrieving the response information and then deleting the response information from the excel sheet that is associated with that Form - as I cannot see another way to use response data to delete a specific response (without a secondary storage point. Delaying my flow to delete after the end of 28 day lifespan of Power Automate is no use either as my timeframe is longer than that!).

Do you know if I never open that excel file behind the Form, will it never record the responses in it? I want to avoid saving responses in yet another place to manage if I can help it - but if I know the file associated with the Form itself is not recording anything then I can use a SharePoint list instead - which will be much simpler!.

Thanks!

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Tomac 4,048 Moderator on at

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@RM-30040732-0

The responses are stored in Dataverse, that Excel sheet is generated (or updated) when you click the button in Microsoft Forms. You shouldn't rely on that spreadsheet because of how the updates are triggered.

If you have access to the Dataverse tables you can work directly with the responses, though this is not recommended.

My recommendation is to record the form responses to a SharePoint List in the flow triggered when the response is submitted, and then have a secondary Flow that runs on a Recurrence trigger and cleans out the old entries from the list when your target event has occurred.

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