Power automate work flow stops working overnight at 'Update a row' step

[HigDave]

Hi

I have a fairly simple workflow which sends a form for approval.  Once the approval decision is made an action is to update a row in the excel file holding the form responses.

This runs correctly but when I come in the next day the flow breaks at the 'Update a row step'.  I then rebuild the work flow and it will work ok again.  It seems to be something happens over night which causes it to stop working.  I had tried putting in a couple of delay steps as I thought that may help with a potential timing issue but that hasn't helped.

Any help would be really appreciated.  I have attached some screenshots below.

Thanks

Dave

[abm]

Hi @HigDave 

Looks like the update row step is trying to update a record with Id 32 and it's not found. Could you expand the update row step? What's your identifier in your Excel row for the updates?

Thanks

[HigDave]

Thanks for coming back to me.  I have attached a screenshot of the update a row action.  Yes I can see it's struggling to find Row Id 32 but in the second screenshot which is from the excel file for the form responses there is a Row Id 32 - so I'm unsure why it can't find one?

 

[abm]

Hi @HigDave 

Thanks for the screenshot. So when does this Excel sheet gets created? I can't see from this flow.  

Thanks

[HigDave]

Thanks - it isn't on the workflow.  Microsoft Forms just automatically creates an excel file which collates the responses - if that makes sense?

[abm]

Hi @HigDave 

Thats interesting. It could be the Excel cache file might be playing out here. I can see you added a delay too. Try to increase the delay and see if that works or not? When you try to update the Excel sheet and at the same time if you getting another response Excel sheet might get locked out too. There is a small risk for an error too. Could you move the response into a SharePoint list or Dataverse to manage it?

Thanks

[HigDave]

Thanks - we will give it a go using Sharepoint as hopefully that is a bit more stable.  We've just tested it and it seems ok.  We will test again on Monday as that will confirm whether the 'overnight' issue is still a problem.

Appreciate the help - thanks

[abm]

Hi @HigDave 

Thanks for your reply. Yes keep an eye and see how it goes. Collecting the responses moving to a SharePoint list is my preferred option.

Thanks