One of the most popular tools that people use and find convenient is Microsoft Excel. I have been part of so many conversations where we had discussions about being able to export to Excel (or not). Updating data using Excel can be tricky, if you don’t use it for the right purposes, if you ask me.
The reason why I believe this is tricky is mainly based on the criteria:
How much time is in between the moment of export creation and the likelyhood of importing back and what are the chances that the record gets updated in the meantime
Use case: updating data using Excel
Let me explain this via a use case where I will be updating data using Excel, and in my example, it will be opportunity data.
The first step is to export the data. From the ribbon, select the three dots and select Export to Excel. This will download the file to your local drive. What most people won’t see is that columns A, B, and C are hidden.
- A = the GUID of the record, which is the unique identifier
- B = Row Checksum is a unique hash code for the record
- C = Data Modified
Now let’s update the Est Close Date in the Excel file for all records to be the end of this month, the 31st of May 2025.
The next step will be to import the data back again, select the three dots > Import from Excel, and upload the file you updated. As you can see below, all the records are updated except for one.
The reason why this was not updated is simple, and immediately highlights the issue. After the records were exported to Excel, I made a change to the opportunity record, and you can see I made two changes:
- Changed the Topic to be 17 Grill Guru BBQ
- Changed the Est. Revenue to be 17000
When checking the data imports file, within Power Platform Admin Settings > Data Management > Imports and navigating to the Failures tab, you also see that that is the specific reason why that record did not update.
So the question is, how did the data import process know it was changed? The unique hash code. Just to show what happens, I have created the exact same export after I made the change to the opportunity record. As you can see below, the unique hash code has changed for that specific record.
So, to conclude on updating data using Excel, if you have data that is very likely taking some time to be imported back into the system, and there are high chances that the records get updated in the meantime, you should probably look for alternatives to avoid getting frustrated and to do manual (re)work.
Privilege: Export to Excel
Within the Power Platform, Export to Excel is being managed by a single property on a security role, and that is something I hope will change in the future so you have more control over which tables are even allowed to be exported, not just based on the tables you have access to via your security role.
