
Hey data friends! This blog is to discuss an edge case I’ve run into in Microsoft Fabric. I won’t go into all the context, but the goal was to have an Excel file accessible to Microsoft Fabric without OneDrive, SharePoint, nor an on-premises data gateway. We also didn’t want a csv because we wanted to have multiple tabs and structured tables with formulas which won’t save properly in csv files.
So how did we do it? OneLake!
Lakehouses in Fabric can store data files very easily, including Excel files. It’s as simple as going to the Get data drop down in the lakehouse and selecting Upload files. However, you cannot edit the xlsx file nor view it from the Microsoft Fabric portal.

If this sounds like a recipe for disaster with people overwriting each other’s information, you’re correct! But don’t worry, there’s a better way – the OneLake File Explorer! This tool will allow you to navigate through the files in Lakehouses in a OneDrive-like experience. From here, you can open and edit the Excel file locally and without having to redownload and upload the file from the online portal.


Sounds pretty great, right? There are some caveats we have to call out. First of all, the syncing process is slightly different than OneDrive. When you edit files in OneDrive, you can usually stay in sync with anyone else who has the file open.
Unfortunately, OneLake does not sync your local copy of the file when you have the file open. I highly recommend frequently saving the file and closing it so that your changes get pushed to the cloud and you can pull any edits that have been made to the file. To make sure you are working off the latest file, check that the Date Modified in your file explorer matches the cloud Date Modified. You should also ensure that these match each other after saving and closing the file.

This explorer is still in Preview, so I’m looking forward to things getting better from here, but it did resolve our situation. In general, definitely recommend going with OneDrive or SharePoint if those are available since those sources have better version history and visibility to concurrent updates.
Happy coding everyone!