Forms spreadsheet missing data on sync to new spreadsheet.

Question

I needed to update (rearrange) a 'Forms' spreadsheet do to adding a question to the related form. When I did the 'sync to new spreadsheet' function the new spreadsheet was created but some data in some of the columns that was entered manually in the spreadsheet was missing (deleted?). I had also deleted the first 7 rows in the original spreadsheet as these were 'test' entries. These also came back. It would seem that the spreadsheet that the form is linked to on Sharepoint is not the spreadsheet that the form actually saves the data to but is perhaps a sudo mirror.

Is there a way to link the form back to the original spreadsheet (retained on Sharepoint) and, if needed, to resync again - that the modified spreadsheet is used and not a sudo mirrored spreadsheet?

This is a snippet of what I am running into:

Original spreadsheet with data added in the right column (were originally blank) where there is data in the left column.

	1930302550
	1930302550
S2414975	3021038050
S2414970	3021038050
F2419535	2030752056
S2414970	3021038050
S2419535	2030752056
S2414975	3021038050
S2414975	3021038050
S2419535	2030752056
S2419535	2030752056
S2414970	3021038050
	2635173951

This is the new 'sync'd' spreadsheet - missing the data above:

	1930302550
	1930302550
S2414975
S2414970
F2419535
S2414970
S2419535
S2414975
S2414975
S2419535
S2419535
S2414970
	2635173951
S2419535
S2419535

And, the data in the right column is added after the fact (into the spreadsheet) because the data in the left column (if populated) has to be related to specific data (number) that has to be manually entered after the form is filled out and submitted.

Thus, is there a way update the spreadsheet manually and have those updates reflected back to the Sharepoint based spreadsheet?

Thanks,

Roger

Answer 1

Hi Sean, thanks for the speedy reply.

I performed the copy from the updated spreadsheet (retained in Teams) back to the 'online' SharePoint spreadsheet (even before you answered :-) ). However, I will not know if it will have worked until I need to do a new spreadsheet relink.

I checked this morning and the changes to the SharePoint spreadsheet are still good. (not relinking as yet)

I would have thought that the sinking of the SharePoint spreadsheet retained on Teams would have reverse sync'd to the cloud based spreadsheet, but I guess not. ( the aforementioned is a presumption on my part.)

Anyway, many thanks.

Roger

University of Texas at Austin

Texas Inventionworks

Answer 2

Dear Roger Rose UTofA,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft community. We are delighted to offer our assistance.

I understand that you are experiencing issues with missing data on a synced Forms spreadsheet. When you sync a Forms spreadsheet to a new spreadsheet, it creates a new copy of the original spreadsheet with the latest data from the form. It is possible that the missing data was not included in the latest sync.

To link the form back to the original spreadsheet, you can go to the Responses tab in Forms and click on the three dots next to the response spreadsheet. From there, you can select "Unlink" to unlink the current spreadsheet and then select "Link" to link it back to the original spreadsheet on SharePoint.

Suppose you have manually updated the spreadsheet and want those updates to be reflected back to the SharePoint-based spreadsheet. In that case, you can try manually copying and pasting the data from the updated spreadsheet to the SharePoint-based spreadsheet. If the issue persists on your side, we are afraid that in order to address this issue, it may be necessary to investigate the environment on your end. As forum support, we do not have sufficient permissions and resources to perform an investigation directly.

We have noted that you have posted this question in the For Business category and assume that you have a Microsoft 365 for Business subscription. Therefore, we sincerely recommend that you contact your Microsoft 365 administrator and follow the steps outlined in this article to create a support ticket and contact Online Support.

The support team at Online Support has higher permissions than us and can remotely examine the situation on your end, gather more resources, and assist you with troubleshooting. This will be a more efficient way to address your concerns.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation! Have a great day.

Sincerely,

Sean | Microsoft Community Moderator