Power BI Refresh - Excel Data from MS Forms

[jusTodd]

Has anyone else seen this issue?  Is there a fix or workaround?

I have a report setup in the service to refresh every night and it does.  There seems to be something wrong with Excel in M365.

It is not displaying data from previous MS Forms entries until I actually open the Excel file in M365.

When I first open the file, new entries do not appear. About a second later, the new entries appear.

When I opened the spreadsheet today, the last entry was 9/1/2025, then two seconds later it reloaded and entries from the rest of the month showed up.

This began sometime in August 2025.

Look forward to any thoughts towards fixing this issue.

... Yes, I understand this is not exaclty a Power BI issue.  I thought I might ask here anyway, since the comporable platform is continually unresponsive or just fails to login completely (the platform, not the users).

[tayloramy · Accepted solution]

Hi @jusTodd, 

This is not something wrong, this is how MS forms export to excel works, it only updates the file when the file is accessed by a user. Now this isn't a design choice I agree with as it has also caused me greif, but alas it is the design choice that was made. 

What I've done here, is I make a Power Automate flow that triggered on form submission, and exported the data to an excel file. That ensures that the file is updated every time a response is submitted. 

After that, I pull that excel file into Fabric and am able to get data. 

Do you have access to Power Automate? Will this workaround work for you? 
It might also be possible to directly interface with the Forms API though I have never tried that. 

If you found this helpful, consider giving some Kudos. If I answered your question or solved your problem, mark this post as the solution. 

[jusTodd]

Appreicate the responses again, @v-dineshya & @tayloramy 

What completely baffles me is that all has been well until just a month or so ago.  I guess that is probably part of some phased roll-out.

[jusTodd]

Thank you @v-dineshya and @tayloramy .  I appreicate your detailed resposne!   

While researching this, I read somewhere along the way that is only an issue with OneDrive Personal and not OneDrive for Business and/or SharePoint.   In other words, if the Form and associated Excel are created in OneDrive for Business or on SharePoint there is no problem.  Do you happen to have experience towards that?

It is always funny how I find these answers after I post the question and not before.

Thanks again!

[tayloramy]

Hi @jusTodd, 

I can confirm this also happens with OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. It was a SharePoint online enviornmnet where I had to come up with the above workaround. 

If you found this helpful, consider giving some Kudos. If I answered your question or solved your problem, mark this post as the solution. 

[v-dineshya · Accepted solution]

Hi @jusTodd ,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

In November 2024, Microsoft changed the way Forms syncs with Excel. Previously, responses from MS Forms would automatically appear in the linked Excel file stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. Now the sync only occurs when the Excel file is opened in Excel for the Web. This affects Power BI reports that rely on that Excel file for refreshes.

Please try below things.

1. Create a Power Automate flow, Trigger “When a new response is submitted” Action 1 as “Get response details” and Action 2 as “Add a row into a table”. Store the Excel file in OneDrive or SharePoint. check the target range is formatted as a table. It will logs responses directly into Excel no need to open the file manually.

2. Send Form responses to a Microsoft List using Power Automate. Connect Power BI to the List instead of Excel. This avoids the Excel sync issue and supports automated refreshes.

3. Manual Sync Trigger, Open the Excel file in Excel for the Web. Wait for the sync to complete. Then let Power BI refresh the updated file.

Note: Please avoid editing the Excel file manually, as this can break the sync. check the Excel file is stored online and not downloaded locally.

Please refer below links.

Microsoft Form isn’t updating the responses in the linked Excel file. - Microsoft Q&A

MS Excel not updating automatically - Microsoft Q&A

How to update to the new solution for syncing forms responses to Excel | Microsoft Community Hub

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Regards,

Dinesh

[tayloramy · Accepted solution]

Hi @jusTodd, 

This is not something wrong, this is how MS forms export to excel works, it only updates the file when the file is accessed by a user. Now this isn't a design choice I agree with as it has also caused me greif, but alas it is the design choice that was made. 

What I've done here, is I make a Power Automate flow that triggered on form submission, and exported the data to an excel file. That ensures that the file is updated every time a response is submitted. 

After that, I pull that excel file into Fabric and am able to get data. 

Do you have access to Power Automate? Will this workaround work for you? 
It might also be possible to directly interface with the Forms API though I have never tried that. 

If you found this helpful, consider giving some Kudos. If I answered your question or solved your problem, mark this post as the solution.