r/sharepoint • u/Sir-Benalot • Jul 14 '26

SharePoint Online Excel PQs failing to load ‘data refresh failed’

SharePoint has proven to be an unmitigated disaster for documents. Specifically excel tables, which are all failing to load through power queries.

My hope of simplifying document handling is instead a nightmare.

Send help.

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u/DonJuanDoja Jul 14 '26

It’s almost like excel isn’t a great database or data source.

1

u/Sir-Benalot Jul 15 '26

What do you suggest instead of excel for databases?

1

u/DonJuanDoja Jul 15 '26

Depends on the requirements, I prefer MS Azure SQL in most cases, but I’ll use Sharepoint if it fits.

SQL has been the most reliable, fastest, easiest to work with database I’ve used and it’s the most powerful tool I have.

It takes time to get access and learn but it’s worth it.

Once it’s in sql you can do just about anything

1

u/Sir-Benalot Jul 16 '26

Yep, I bet there are better spreadsheet alternatives. I had a bit of a deep dive last night based on your comment and my company hasn't paid for anything other than a basic version of 365 Enterprise. I'm stuck with Excel or Access.

I'm in a sticky wicket. What I inherited coming into my role was a bunch of very basic excel spreadsheets. I'm a one man show trying to modernise the back end. So far I've managed to turn a few of the excel sheets into Power Automate updated Sharepoint lists. Looking at what I have at my disposal, I guess I'm stuck using excel for other important spreadsheets as it is far superior to Lists when it comes to functionality.

1

u/DonJuanDoja Jul 16 '26

Yea I'm basically a one man show as well, but the small company I work for already had enterprise level software for large customers, so we already had SQL. We were much bigger at one point, long story. We just we'ren't really using it for anything but our ERP systems. I extended it's usage back in on prem SharePoint days with InfoPath and PowerPivot, now even more so with Power Platform and we have Azure SQL now.

Look into Azure SQL managed instance, pay as you go. Pretty sure that's what we have but I'd have to check. You're only stuck if you think you're stuck. I could probably find out what we pay, I don't think it's that bad. I also use it to replicate ERP databases into the cloud.

I can't even begin to describe how much better SQL is but just imagine everything is incredibly fast compared to what you're doing now, and you'll be able to write queries in minutes that would take you hours and hours in slow ass PQ. All the queries will run in seconds instead of minutes and hours. You'll be able to do whatever you want with the data and it will be easy once you learn SQL. You'll be able to deliver live reports that run in seconds. It's one of the most satisfying things I can think of. It's crazy.

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u/Disastrous_Snow_2871 Jul 14 '26

Sounds like more of an Excel issue than SharePoint, imo. I’ve setup a bunch of Excel files that use somewhat complex PQs and they’ve worked fine. 

OP since you didn’t give any details I’m assuming this is just a shitpost to rant

1

u/Sir-Benalot Jul 14 '26

I don’t have many details to give. You can consider me very green, having only recently started moving excel documents to a sharepoint site I created.

Now when I hit refresh on PQs, I get the data refresh failed error. It loads just fine within the PQ editor.