Flow to excel stopped as spreadsheet open

[LisaJ]

I've built my first flow which takes respones from a Form and adds them to an excel spreadsheet.
It works fine UNLESS I, or someone else in the team, has the spreadsheet open. 
Is there a way around this? The spreadsheet will be in fairly regular use.

As this is my first flow it may be that I have done something wrong, or that my expectations were too high!

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @LisaJ ,

Could you share a screenshot of your flow?

Do you want to insert response from forms to Excel file? It seems that it doesn’t work when the file is open.

I have made a simple flow likes below, which will add a row into a table when a response is submitted.

However, it works fine even though when the file is open.

Please check the following screen shot:

Best regards,

Mabel

[LisaJ]

Hi Mabel

The flow looks like it is set up the same as yours.

The spreadsheet the data was going to was open on my PC and the flow failed:

 

The detail is:

Is it the excel settings on my PC or is it the flow?

Thanks

Lisa

[yashag2255 · Accepted solution]

Hi @LisaJ , 

Looks like the excel sheet is open in some tab in edit mode. Please close that excel sheet and try again. If the same error pops, please close the browser and start a fresh session. 

Note: While running a flow that connects to excel, you cannot have the excel sheet open in edit mode. 

Hope this Helps!

If this reply has answered your question or solved your issue, please mark this question as answered. Answered questions helps users in the future who may have the same issue or question quickly find a resolution via search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. THANKS!

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @LisaJ ,

Please check the following doc on Excel Online connector:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/excelonlinebusiness/

From the doc we know that an Excel file may be locked for an update or delete up to 6 minutes since the last use of the connector. Further, a single Excel file should be used by a single connection to prevent writing data from multiple connection and possible data inconsistency.

I guess that when you are editing the file using flow, someone else is also trying to update the file, which caused the error message.

When testing the action Add a row into a table, the response could be saved into the Excel file when it is open.

Could you try with an Excel file that has not been shared with others to see if you are able to add the response to the Excel table with the file open?

Best regards,

Mabel

[LisaJ]

Thanks, that was what I was trying to understand.

So the excel spreadsheet only updates from form submissions when it is not in use.
This is not ideal as the spreadsheet will be in fairly regular use. 
I think the best workaround is for the form to only update the spreadsheet once a day outside of office hours.

[LisaJ]

I was deliberately editing the excel file while the flow was running as that is a likely scenario in this business process.

Now that I understand that we cannot do both things together I'll change the flow so that it only triggers once per day, rather than every time there is a form submission. 

Unless, that is, you have a better solution to offer me.

Thanks
Lisa