Hello Kobo family,
I once designed a form which I have been using for the last 7 months without any issues. Secondly I dynamically linked my kobo account to MS-Excel 2021. Initially, all refreshes were working perfectly well. Problem came when I recently added a new variable to the form. When I redeployed and tried refreshing my excel database, an error message popped up which prevented data pulling. The error message read, “The Column _notes was not found”. I decided to create a completely new connection with intentions to design a completely new database. This option also didn’t work because I could get the same error message. How can I sort this out ? I will surely be grateful for the support. Thank you
Hi @abraham_oluka,
Are you using API v1? or V2? because your problem is “_note” column not in your imported file, you may unchecked it while using API v2 or API V1. There is two possible solution for it, first one is you can add that column to Kobo export file. Second, If you are using Power Query, you can delete that column in Power Query in advance editor so it will not throw error anymore. for the second option if you can copy the advance editor log, and share with me i can edit for you
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Thank you @osmanburcu for the feedback. I used API V1 for this case. The kobo export file already has that particular column “_notes” as previewed within the Power Query What puzzles me is that, the query attempts to pull the first two rows of the dataset including the purported missing column into the Excel file and then goes ahead to append that error message. See screen shot
In an attempt to get rid of it completely (by deletion from power query OR via Kobo saved export settings). I still get the error message of Column _notes not found.
Thank you
If it is fine for you, can you send the PBIX file to me via private message? I would like to review it personally
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Thank you @osmanburcu for the feedback once more. The error I am getting is via Microsoft Excel and not PowerBI. I designed my dashboards via Excel Not PowerBI. What can I share exactly to get supported?
Thank you
You can share the excel file as well
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Hello @Kal_Lam. Sorry for reaching out privately. The issue i posted weeks ago still puzzles me without any green light into the solution. Surprisingly i don’t get any errors when i dynamically link the same api to PowerBI. If there is need to share my Excel Database and api, I can gladly do that. Thanks
@abraham_oluka, pinging @osmanburcu who is our ambassador expert with PowerBI’s. He should be able to guide you to solve your issue.
@abraham_oluka Hi, can you share your Excel with me in a private message so i can check what is the issue?
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Dear @abraham_oluka,
After reviewing the file you shared, i just realized the problem, your total number of columns is fixed to 44, but the “_notes” and “_validation_status” are column 45 are 46. I believe after you import the data you included two more questions and these two question are out of bound now. Solution is simple, just go the advance editor and change the column=44 to column=46. Your problems will disappear after this change
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Indeed, this was the problem. I added two extra variables to the original project (44 columns), upon redeployment, I didn’t know how to readjust the Power query settings to accommodate the two extra columns. Thank you so so so much @osmanburcu and @Kal_Lam. The only problem now is long refresh time which I am trying to diagnose if it’s from my end (Internet source) or from kobo server end. God bless you all for the support 
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