Excel Files Fail to Ingest into Context Grounding Index When SharePoint Sensitivity Label is "Internal Use – Employee Only"
Symptom
When ingesting Excel files (.xls/.xlsx) from a SharePoint connector into a Context Grounding index, the sync job fails for specific documents with the error:
"This xls document is malformed and cannot be processed. The file may be corrupted. Try opening it in the original application and re-saving before uploading."
The file opens normally in Excel and is not actually corrupted. Changing the file's sensitivity label to Public (or another non-encrypting label) allows the same file to upload successfully.
Resolution
Change the sensitivity label on the affected file(s) to one that does not apply encryption (e.g., Public, or Internal Use\Any User (No Protection)).
This keeps the file in standard OOXML/ZIP or unencrypted OLE2 format so it can be parsed normally.
Read the Microsoft documentation for instructions on how to set the labels.
Root Cause
This is caused by Rights Management Service (RMS) / Microsoft Purview Information Protection encryption, not file corruption. When a file in SharePoint is assigned a sensitivity label such as Internal Use – Employee Only, Microsoft applies file-level Rights Management encryption to the file.
Even when the SharePoint connection is configured with a properly authorized account/token, the file downloads successfully but remains encrypted. UiPath's Context Grounding ingestion pipeline does not currently support decrypting Azure RMS / MIP-protected files, so ingestion fails regardless of the account's read permissions.