Forum Discussion
O365 SharePoint List Column Names Corrupted
While trying to import a list into Power BI, I discovered that most of the column names in one of the lists in one of our SharePoint team sites are corrupted. The display names are intact, it's the internal names that are affected.
I've attached a screenshot of what I was seeing in Power BI.
Example:
This is the URL for what should be the "Location" column. The internal column name is showing up as "uwbz"
My suspicion is that there was some sort of update going on when the list and columns were originally created. Because this is O365 and evergreen by design, we have no real idea when updates are being applied and won't see these issues until we try to do something with them, like import into Power BI or Flow. In this case I re-created the list. That's not something we would want or should have to do...
Thoughts, Microsoft?
- Solution: https://prathy.com/2017/11/sharepoint-list-power-bi-template/
Not mine, but I checked — It works! Lori Hanley This is unbelievable. This just happened to me in my SharePoint list and it is connected to PowerApps. An internal column name called "InternalStepNumber" was changed to "_x0076_gj5". This is cause for serious concern. Now in my PowerApps app, all my formulas reference these obscure internal column names and I am not able to tell what I'm looking at.
What are enterprise customers going to do when they start building apps and their naming conventions are built on sound, well thought out internal column names and Microsoft code changes the internal column names? What is Microsoft going to do?
Bill Kuhn How are you adding the columns? Are you using Quick Edit view and using the + symbol? If so, this would generate the internal columns as you describe.
Beau Cameron Ahhhh...that was it. I learn something new everyday, this one just happened to be in the "not fun" learning category.
Just discovered this problem as well. This really needs to be corrected, since recreated sharepoint lists is such a pain.Lori Hanley
Lori - Have you received input from Microsoft (or anyone else) on this subject?
This is a topic I've pushed for almost a year (first reported in February, 2018) and have grown old and weary finding anyone willing to investigate it, much less discuss its resolution. If you have any news to share about your experience, please do. I can tell you the problem is quite real, often repeatable, and easily verifiable with web traffic traces of API communication between PowerBI and SPO. If and when you have the chance to discuss this with a Microsoft decision-maker, please let me know. I'll do the same.
