how to update external queries in excel 2016

That line makes the function run anytime Excel updates/recalcs the worksheet. VBA custom functions can also be tagged as volatile using this line in the function code: Application.Volatile In some situations Info(), Cell() and SumIf() can also be volatile.

Other volatile functions are Today(), Randbetween(), Offset() and Indirect(). Microsoft calls NOW() and similar functions ‘volatile’ because their values can change even if no other cells have changed. In other words, you should be able to glance at a worksheet and know it’s up to the second but that’s not possible with Excel ‘out of the box’. Some external factor is needed to make Excel update Now() and the rest of the worksheet. But if there’s nothing to make that happen, Now() doesn’t change value. The NOW() function updates to the latest date and time whenever Excel recalculates the worksheet. In fact, there’s no exposed controls for the Stock, Currency or other linked data types. That means you can’t setup an automatic data refresh, as you would with normal data connections. They are data connections to external sources but do NOT appear as Excel Data Connections. The Stock, Currency and other linked data types are curious beasts. Instead of having a nice automatic ‘ticker’, we’re expected to click ‘Refresh’ to get the latest prices. Users will want their worksheets to grab the latest prices automatically, something the current preview releases can’t do. With the Stock Data Type the ability to update automatically is more important. One is a ‘traditional’ macro approach, the other is a newer trick using PowerQuery in conjunction with single macro.Įither option gives you more control over updating than Microsoft’s simplistic ‘tick the box’ addition to Excel 365. This article has TWO different ways to force updates in Excel. In 2022, Microsoft finally added some Stock/Currency auto-refresh options but they are incomplete and limited. Ideally, Excel would have an overall setting to refresh the worksheet every ‘n’ seconds or minutes.

In other words, modern Excel has changed in ways that Microsoft hasn’t yet fully adapted to. These days there are situations where cells change value but Excel does NOT update the worksheet. Normally Excel will update itself when you change a cell value. These tricks are important with the Stock and Currency data type in Excel 365 but also other situations. There are two ways to make Excel automatically refresh data connections and recalculate a worksheet.

How to update external queries in excel 2016