Forms not syncing with online workbook

Question

Hello,

When I try and sync/load form responses automatically into an online excel sheet through the forms app or OneDrive, I get the following message

Open from Forms This form is linked to a different workbook. Go to Forms to open the linked workbook. (preview)

when I first open the spreadsheet it says the following, so I know it should Sync, and the work book is connected to that workbook as it was generated from that MS Form.

Syncing... This workbook syncs automatically with changes in Microsoft Forms. (preview)

opening a new work book each time i get new form responses wont work as i would have to redo multiple formulas in the sheet every time.

I know this feature (automatic syncing to online workbook) is reasonably new (Jan 24?) but I could really do with it working for a project I'm working on. Has anyone had this issue and found a solution? I've tried opening the work book directly from online one drive and through the forms app as well as trying it on different PC's all to no luck.

I'm sure it did work when I first tried forms about a week ago on a different form

Thanks

Answer 1

Hello RobG21,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community. My name is Marisol and I'm happy to help.

I'm sorry to hear that you are experiencing this problem. Based on your description, I can see that your Microsoft Forms and Excel workbook data are not in sync.

Could you confirm if you encountered an error message? If you're having sync issues with your Microsoft Forms and Excel workbook data, there are a few things you can do to avoid these errors.

• Excel workbook is corrupt

You can recover the workbook by opening it in the desktop version of Excel. To get a complete set of the most current responses, sync the data to a new workbook.

To ensure you always have the most complete set of responses, open your workbook in the desktop version of Excel.

To repair a corrupted workbook, please try these steps:

1. Click File > Open.
2. Click the location and folder that contains the corrupted workbook.
3. In the Open dialog box, select the corrupted workbook.
4. Click the arrow next to the Open button, and then click Open and Repair.
5. To recover as much of the workbook data as possible, pick Repair.

If Repair isn’t able to recover your data, pick Extract Data to extract values and formulas from the workbook.

To see other options, please check this link: https://support.microsoft.com/office/153a45f4-6cab-44b1-93ca-801ddcd4ea53

• Excel workbook size is too large

A smaller file size is less likely to thrown a data sync error. To reduce the file size of a workbook, please try these:

1. On the Data tab, choose Connections to open the Workbook Connections dialog box.
2. Scroll through the list of connections and look for an item that has Data Model listed in the Description column. If you find it, then the workbook contains a Data Model.

If the issue persists, please check this link to see other workaround through this link: https://support.microsoft.com/office/573ac275-6456-46f9-9322-2403414d21c0

Thank you and please let me know if you need further help.

Give back to the Community, Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below.

Best regards,

Answer 2

Hi there, Did you end up working out how to fix this error? I am having the same thing happen - 'This form is linked to a different workbook'.

I have deleted the workbook and created a new one through forms but still having the same error.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bec

Answer 3

Sudenly getting same error. Is very annoying as I have created link via Power Query to get data into a spreadsheet on my laptop to create mailing lists automatically in Word. Now it all a mess.

Answer 4

Thank you for your response.

The only error message is:

Open from Forms This form is linked to a different workbook. Go to Forms to open the linked workbook. (preview)

I’ve made sure the workbook is not corrupt and it’s only got the 1 table in so isn’t too large.

I need to open it through the one drive for the syncing to work, as per the message when first opening the excel from Forms.

Not sure if it’s connected but when I try and link 2 workbooks together using excel online it comes up and says unable to connect as workbooks are on different domains even tho they are saved in the same one drive folder

Answer 5

I'm getting the same issue, as well beginning last week (6/21/24). I've Disconnected the workbook & Synced to multiple new workbooks. However, when I open the Excel file from my Forms page I still get this error: "Open from Forms This form is linked to a different workbook. Go to Forms to open the linked workbook. (preview)."

This has been a very useful feature and I built several reports off of this. But now, I'm having to manually go back & start over.

If the folks at Microsoft can repair this, there will be a lot of happy people!