Sharepoint list - Excel (Save changes to sharepoint list)

Question

I have created a sharepoint list which may contain hundreds of line items. I have exported the list file to .iqy in order to connect it to excel.

In excel, I enabled the enable background refresh and refresh data when opening in the connection properties. In this way, any updates on the sharepoint list would appear to my excel file.

What I am try to acheive:

Is it possible that whenever I edit the excel file, it would also update the sharepoint list?

Problem:

Whenever I update the excel file, it doesn't update the items in sharepoint list. It just updates the excel file based on the changes in the sharepoint list itself.

Answer 1

As Christoffer explained, it's a one-way refresh only. If you want two-way sync, your choices are: switch to Access, do specific development, or use a 3rd party product, such as SharePoint List Synchronizer. This product (developed by my company) installs on Excel only (no server setup) and makes the existing sync process bi-directional.

However, keep in mind that Excel doesn't support all SharePoint scenarios, which probably explains why Microsoft stopped the two-way sync between Excel and SharePoint lists about 10 years ago. For example, Excel doesn't support multiple selection in drop-down lists, or doesn't handle rich text in a way that would be compatible with SharePoint.