Excel Data Source

[Anonymous]

I have an Excel spreadsheet that I use for my data source. My issue is people keep adding in various columns and when I refresh my report, it always Errors out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[v-jingzhang]

Hi @Anonymous 

I agree with @jbwtp. If you don't need to keep those newly added columns in your report, you can Choose or remove columns to keep only the necessary columns after connecting to the Excel file. 

Based on my experience, usually only adding new columns to the data source will not cause error in the existing report because those columns are not existing when the report is created. However, removing or changing exising columns in the data source may influence the report. You can click steps in APPLIED STEPS pane to find out from which step it starts to have errors and what is the error message. Then try to resolve it according to the error message. You can show the error message here so that  we can help provide suggestions accordingly. 

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Jing
If this post helps, please Accept it as Solution to help other members find it.

[jbwtp · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Try using something like "Remove Other Columns" (translates to a function Table.SelectColumns()) as a first step imideattely after importing data before doing anything else (like ChangeType).This would make your dataset comliant - assuming the columns are not deleted, only added to the dataset - with the remaining bits of your query.

Kind regrds,

John