Excel Web Access web part won't refresh

Question

I am trying to put live/refreshable Excel charts on a SharePoint Online web page using the Excel Web Access web part. I have made 3 different Excel files using different methods for creating the connection between the custom SP list and the Excel file. The Excel files are stored in a Document library on the same site as the custom list and the web part page. In each case I am unable to realize a live data connection between the chart and the underlying list data.

Here is one data connection example I used. However, when I update the underlying list data the change is not reflected in the pie chart I have on the web page. When I tried to refresh the connection using the "Refresh Selected Connection" from the web part tool bar menu, the page flashes but the webpart does not update. If I use "Refresh All Connection" I get the error message "External Data Refresh Failed, unable to refresh one or more data connections.

If I open the Excel file and Refresh the data from there, then save and close the file then refresh the browser, the change is reflected in the webpart. This isn't a practical solution however.

I'm hoping someone can advise me. I see plenty example online of this working; I just can't get it to work for me.

Answer 1

Hi @Angela French (ctcLink)

Do you mean that you have used some other methods to change the chart in the excel data by changing the list data?

But the display in the web part is not updated after the change.

Can you roughly describe how you established this connection? It looks more like the data in excel is not updated.

In addition, according to the error message you provided, in some cases, SharePoint does not refresh external data.

You can refer to this similar situation below：

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/prevent-error-message-external-data-refresh-failed/88bc5d84-ba28-4535-b21f-b38c803115b5

---

If an Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.