Microsoft Forms will NOT open in Excel . Error message "Sorry, something went wrong" after moving to a group

Question

Hello,

I had created a survey form for my agency to use that has already recieved responses. I was able to access "Open in Excel" for the form no problem, but then I accidentally moved the form from My Forms to a Group. I have already looked into moving the form out of the Group and back to My Forms and found that, as of now, there is no way to do so (which in my opinion, is a huge oversight on Microsoft's part??)

Anyway, I am still able to open the survey and access responses in "View Results"; however, I can no longer "Open in Excel". I receive an error that "Sorry, something went wrong" (screenshot attached). I am a member of the Group the form was moved to and I am the creator of the form, I have no idea if this is an access issue but I don't know why I would suddenly not have access to open the Excel file. I have tried clearing out my browser cache, restarting Forms, and restarting my entire computer. I have also tried "sync responses in a new workbook", but nothing happens (it just eternally gives the message that it is "syncing", no new file appears anywhere to my knowledge, I checked OneDrive and nothing).

I am at my wits end with this - I absolutely need to be able to access this file through Excel and nothing has worked. I don't understand why switching to a Group made this form completely inaccessible in Excel.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/b389bc60-4399-40a9-a16e-f811c3b51c13?platform=QnA

Answer 1

Dear Alexa,

I'm afraid that there is no option moving the group form back to the personal form location. Some users has submitted the similar feedback on our product feedback platform and the product developers has kept the feedback status as Open. I suggest you vote and add your comments there as well and I hope that there will be an option available in Microsoft Forms soon.

Allow to move forms · Community (microsoft.com)

.

You may use a personal account or a Microsoft 365 business work or school account to submit the feedback.

The Excel results of the form in the personal form location is saved in OneDrive for Business and the owner is only the form creator by default.

After the form is moved to a group, all members in the group becomes the owner of the form and the Excel results of the form is saved in the group connected site in SharePoint Online.

So you will not find the original Excel result file in OneDrive for Business. I suggest you go to the group related site and the corresponding library to see whether the Excel file is there.

The library URL is like https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/Shared%20Documents. If you haven't gone there to have a check, I suggest you go there to see if you can find the Excel file.

If yes, open the group form and do a test to see whether the responses are synced with the Excel file in SharePoint Online. If yes, the group form should be fine.

If you want to move the group form back to the personal form, you may click on the group form>...>Copy to copy it as a new personal form.

Then add a reply to the new personal form>open the Excel file in SharePoint Online, copy the previous replies to the new Excel file of the new personal form in OneDrive for Business like the following. The id will be recounted but you can format the id manually.

Now when you add the new replies to the new form, the responses will be synced as well.

.

Thanks for your understanding.

Sincerely

Cliff | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 2

Thank you very much for you response.

I have checked the Sharepoint documents for this group - however, I do not see the Excel sheet for this Form saved. The Excel sheets for the other Forms surveys are in this group, but the one I created is not there. I tried searching the entire library for this group, but the Excel file is nowhere to be found.

Where do I go from here? Is there a way to retrieve the file?

Answer 3

Dear Alexa,

Thanks for your updates and kindness.

You may check the first-level recycle bin (https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/\_layouts/15/RecycleBin.aspx?view=5) and the second-level recycle bin (https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/\_layouts/15/RecycleBin.aspx?view=13) on the site to see whether it is deleted or not at your side. If it doesn't exist, it may be the root cause why you can't open the Excel file to see the responses.

.

If no, please don't worry. We have a specific channel trying to help the users recover their lost data in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online.

If you aren't the administrator, I suggest you contact the administrator in your school and let him follow the steps in Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn to open a support ticket to our related team as soon as possible.

About admin roles in the Microsoft 365 admin center - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support

The administrator should be able to open the support ticket from Help & support in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Then you can select the Phone support or the Email support as follows.

To simplify the process, I'd like to summarize the issue as follows.

Issue Symptom:

===============

Can't recover the form Excel result file saved in SharePoint Online.

Issue Environment:

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SharePoint Online

What users have done:

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Try checking them in the first-level recycle bin and the second-level recycle bin in SharePoint Online.

Next Step:

==================

Open a support ticket to our related team to recover the lost data.

Thanks for your effort and hope that the data can be soon recovered by our related team.

Sincerely

Cliff | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 4

I have always been able to access the Xcel results from my forms but it appears that this is no longer available. Is this a recent change?

Answer 5

Dear Minka,

As the original thread has been closed, I suggest you post a new thread on our forum for further help.

Your effort and time are highly appreciated!

Sincerely

Cliff | Microsoft Community Moderator