Forum Discussion

Virtual_Ames's avatar
Virtual_Ames
Microsoft Employee
10 years ago

[DataFormat.Error] External table is not in the expected format.

Community,   I am having a problem importing files from a sharepoint folder (6 files that need to be brought together). I see these as .xls files in Sharepoint and therefore use:        let     ...
Need Help
przemekkucia's avatar
przemekkucia
Advocate II
9 years ago

Same error,

 

In our case it seems that access restrictions create the problem. Even with full control given to me. After removing them it worked like magic. 

 

Sadly, if files have to be restricted - we haven't found any workaround. (Power Query for Excel also didn't work)

lme062's avatar
lme062
New Member
8 years ago

I'm trying to access a JetReport .xlsx shared to me from a Sharepoint site

It also fails with "External table is not in the expected format"

 

Any one had experience with using shared excel files in PowerBI?

  • Johanno's avatar
    Johanno
    Continued Contributor
    8 years ago

    I saw in another forum that someone wrote that this can occur when you export to Excel files from third party software. A workaround that worked for me is that if you open each file with Excel and save it, after this you can import it. It's not a good solution though if you have many files.

    • grechill's avatar
      grechill
      Helper I
      6 years ago

      Hi Johanno ,

       

      Unfortunately it didn't work for me. Tried re-saving as xlsx, no success. Tried copying to new Excel file as data and saving as xlsx, no success. 

       

      BUT

      No wonder, saving as CSV works as there is no XML involved.