Refresh external data in Excel Services
Data in a Microsoft Office Excel workbook that has been displayed in Excel Services can come from two different locations. The data may be stored directly in the workbook, or it may be stored in an external data source, such as in a database or in an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) cube.
If the data comes from an external data source, the workbook author or administrator has defined the connection information, often in an Office data connection (.odc) file, which describes how to locate, log in, query, and access the external data source.
When you are connected to an external data source, you can perform a refresh operation to retrieve the updated data. Each time that you refresh data, you see the most recent version of the data, including any changes that were made to the data since it was last refreshed.
What do you want to do?
- Learn about refreshing data;
- Learn about security concerns;
- Control how data is refreshed;
- Learn about refreshing data.
The following illustration explains the basic process of what happens when you refresh data connected to an external data source.
- A refresh operation gets up-to-date data;
- A connection, often saved to a connection file, defines all the information needed to access and retrieve data from an external data source;
- There are a variety of data sources you can access, such as OLAP, SQL Server, OLEDB providers, and ODBC drivers;
- Up-to-date data is added to the current workbook.
