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January 27, 2026
Question

AI Agent returns empty result for Excel file

  • January 27, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 0 views

I’m testing an Appian AI Agent that needs to read data from an XLSX document. I have two copies of the exact same XLSX file stored in two different folders in Appian.

  • When I point the AI Agent to the file in Folder A, it works as expected and can read/extract the data.
  • When I point it to the identical file in Folder B, it does not work (the agent appears to find nothing in the file / doesn’t extract data).

Both documents are valid Appian documents of type .xlsx, AI Agent uses Semantic Search to read the data, and the file contents are identical. The only difference is the folder they’re stored in. 

Has anyone seen this behavior before or can suggest what to check? Any guidance on why the same file would work in one folder but not another would be appreciated. 

I created new folders, checked the folder security, but I can't find the issue. 

4 replies

adamb9906Author
January 27, 2026

It turns out there is an Appian indexing that takes place in the backend after the Excel file is uploaded, so recently uploaded file is not readable by the AI... If anyone knows any solution please share

March 11, 2026

Hi [mention:73cd5dc9fd424476bc2e659906f83e48:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] , the XLSX file format isn't currently supported in agent studio. A workaround is to convert the file to PDF before providing it to the agent. This should work for simple XLSX files, more advanced excel handling is planned for the future.

rishukumarg1965
March 11, 2026

Hi [mention:73cd5dc9fd424476bc2e659906f83e48:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] ,
Could you please guide me on how you are achieving this? Specifically, how are you extracting data from the Excel file using the AI agent?
I tried implementing it, but I encountered the following error:
“An error occurred while executing the tool [SemanticSearch]: The user [username] does not have sufficient privileges to perform the requested action.”
Any guidance on how to resolve this would be really helpful.

harshas2775
March 12, 2026

Hi [mention:c7ed152842da4892ba88b9d946100b8f:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]  It looks more of a security issue in your case. Check the users's group assignment and ensure the group is configured for AI Agent's security (atleast as Viewer) as well as any AI Tools you might have in the Agent - check their permission as well.