Help needed in synchronizing Sharepoint document library with an excel file

[HelloIN]

Hi Team,

 

I am trying to create an excel file which is hosted on sharepoint which does the following purpose:

 

1. It maintains records of each file and folder of a sharepoint document library (has links to access every file/folder)

2. If any changes are done in the document library, the excel file should synchronize automatically with this updated change.

 

I am trying to achieve this with power automate but I am finding it very hard to do so since I am quite new to this.

 

Can some experts please guide me on how should I approach this?

 

I have found resources to do this with document lists but nothing for document library and excel.

 

Thanks.

[DrMacintosh]

A Sharepoint document library is essentially a glorified shared HDD. You would typically access it by synchronizing the document library to a computer via OneDrive or online via the SharePoint Site url....that being said

 

Excel is not a dynamic database and should not be used to store this type of data in this way. Also, it cannot be used in the manner you describe for various reasons. However, there are better data logging systems available built into in the M365 suite if you need this level of documentation for some reason. 

 

A simple search of "get a log of all changes in a shairpoint document library" lead me to this: https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/186093/how-to-track-all-changes-inside-a-sharepoint-site and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/solution-guidance/query-sharepoint-change-log-with-changequery-and-changetoken

 

Somewhere along this path you should be able to get the functionality you want. If you have higher-ups to report to, please kindly tell them that excel is not a magic bit of software and cannot replace an actual database. 

 

[HelloIN]

@DrMacintosh really appreciate your reply. Yes i do have higher ups to report and i am trying to solve a particular use case.

 

The sharepoint document library contains a lot of customized "choice" type of columns. Using the values of these columns, I have to search and filter records. Now the default sharepoint search does not support such level of searches (only title and file name properties are searchable) and thus i was thinking to export the contents of this sharepoint document library in excel and then use excel's filters to search my desired data. 

 

Now export to excel from sharepoint works for me, but the management is asking a way to automate this task and maintain this excel file on sharepoint itself so that every time anything is changed in sharepoint, the excel has pulled up updated changes.

 

If there are any other mechanisms which help to search for files in sharepoint based on a particular property's value, please let me know.

 

Thanks.

[DrMacintosh]

11 hours ago, HelloIN said:

Now export to excel from sharepoint works for me, but the management is asking a way to automate this task and maintain this excel file on sharepoint itself

Ah ok, this might be possible using power automate. But it's going to require a script of some sort and I don't have the skills to create scripts for M365 so I'd recommend going over to the Microsoft support forums to see if you can get more insight there.