Update to the new solution for syncing forms responses to Excel

"With the new syncing solution, you must open the Excel app to receive new responses. Otherwise, they will not sync to the workbook."

This will be problematic for several use cases that depend on the interoperability of M365 products. One example: it's not uncommon to build a simple Power BI dashboard with a MS Form's sync'd spreadsheet file as a data source--with automatic refresh and row-level security, this allows users to see an up-to-date log or visualizations of their own responses without having access to other users' form submissions, as they would have if the output sheet was shared directly. The form syncing update means that either (A) some user will have to have the spreadsheet open at all times, eroding the value of automatic refresh, or (B) the dashboard will be inaccurate. This use case demonstrates the benefit of MS Forms + Power BI compatibility and often delivers value to organizations in lightweight, everyday workflows where heavier development of Power Apps or SharePoint Lists would be cumbersome or expensive.

For another example, Power Automate workflows that back-reference prior form responses (even if triggered by the Forms connector, as suggested in this article) will no longer be reliable, as they will only be able to access responses that arrived prior to the most recent time a user opened the spreadsheet (I am not aware of any MS Forms connector in Power Automate that references prior responses...). In many automated processes, by nature, users are not interacting directly with the spreadsheet, and having to do so would introduce a degree of unreliability.

Might Microsoft explore the possibility of giving users or admins an option for how data sync is performed (the "old" way (automatically) vs the new (only when viewed))? Alternatively, an action in Power Automate's Forms connector that could trigger a response sheet re-sync might present a viable workaround. I manage plenty of forms for which the new sync option will not pose a problem, and would happily keep it for those, but this change negatively impacts several workflows that reference MS Forms data automatically.

Oh, this is awful! "With the new syncing solution, you must open the Excel app to receive new responses. Otherwise, they will not sync to the workbook."

I will go back to using google forms and linking to them using power query.

Agree with SeanH405 and grant150. This is poor design. Forms raw data used by Forms native reports should be exposed to PowerQuery without all this sync or PowerAutomate stuff. This is a basic feature already available by other online survey services.

Agree with above comments that sync should not require opening the Excel document. This is a MAJOR issue for us and throws a huge wrench into a project I've been working on for weeks.

Is a change allowing auto sync to Excel, without opening the Excel document, on the roadmap? Is MS even considering it, and if so, what is the prioritization and timeline?

Actually, it would be helpful if Microsoft had a standard Power Automate that opened the response spreadsheet when a new response was made on a form, then closed the spreadsheet again. Does this exist somewhere?

Concordo com a maioria dos comentários.

O principal problema dessa nova "atualização" é justamente perder a sincronização automática com o excel. Tem empresas que usam diversas planilhas como base dos modelos semânticos no Power Query e Power Bi para atualizar seus bancos de dados. Esse processo de abrir arquivo por arquivo terá um impacto severo.

Mesmo a solução no Power Automate não é a mais precisa. Você pode fazer a automação das respostas do Forms, mas você perde a modularidade de incluir novas perguntas durante o processo, uma vez que o power automate pede para definir quais colunas serão as perguntas respectivas. Se precisar incluir ou alterar uma nova pergunta, é necessário alterar também no Power Automate.

As vezes o mais simples é melhor. O principal recurso usado a ferramenta (atualização automática) foi descontinuado.

So, instead of having collected in background responses now I have to add Power Automate step in the process to collect them by it. In our case nobody cares to open file with the responses, it is used for the reporting in sematic model or another Excel file.

I have made a power automate to update the spreadsheet. After numerous conversations with Microsoft, NONE of which actually answered my question, I have figured it out.

Brief description below and a more detailed one, with pictures here.

Open Power Automate, and click Create, on the left of the screen.

Choose Automated cloud flow.

Give the flow a Name, and choose "When a new response is submitted" for the flow’s trigger.

Then click Create.

A box gets created, and click on that to bring up the Parameters.

Choose the form from the drop down list on the left.

I didn’t change any of the other Settings, or Code view, and I don’t know what they do.

Go back to the box in the main part of the screen

And click the Plus sign and then click "Add an Action", to add the next step.

Type “get a response” into the search bar on the left, until it brings up “Get Response Details on the list.

Click this.

Select the form you are wanting to link to and then in the Response Id box, click the Lightning bolt, and choose Response Id.

Again, I didn’t go into Settings or anything else, and don’t know what they do.

You should now have another box in the middle of the screen. Click on the Plus sign again and then click “Add an action”

Search for Add a row into a table on the left hand panel.

Then fill in the details for the spreadsheet that you want the data to turn up in.

When choosing a folder, clicking the name doesn’t do anything, you have to click the arrow to the side.

Now for the annoying bit.

Click the drop down, and choose the data you want to show in the spreadsheet or click “Show All”

For each box, click on the lightning bolt, and select the question that matches to the name in the box. YES, you have to do this for every single question on your form!

Save your Flow, on the right hand side near the top of the screen.

Then click Test, and fill out your form. Hopefully, the test is successful and the information from the form will be added to your spreadsheet.

I have found that this can take up to half an hour to then show in a Power Query that is linked to the updating spreadsheet.

I have one Form that is owned by a (non-Teams) 365 group, and this is the only Form that I haven't been able to convert over. I have a few user accounts that are in turn owners of that 365 group. Do you have a recommended way to be able to update a form like this?

I could share this Form as a template to another account to make that new account as the owner. However, the Form is the trigger for a Power Automate flow. That would require some work to fully fix, and I'm just seeing if there's a quicker way around that.

Good