best way to consolidate data from multiple workbooks question

Akira181

Board Regular
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Messages
67
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. Windows
I have currently 14 workbooks that I want to pull a few rows of data from each and consolidate in a master file. Currently I'm just using formulas linked to the workbooks to automatically update and pull the rows that I want., e.g.: ='T:\Data\WIP\[Test File 1.xlsx]Sheet1'!H$21

I've set it up for two files and it's pulling the data and updating in the master file okay however, the final storage location for these files are still TBD so I haven't set it up for all 12 files yet. I'm slightly concerned that it may get a bit laggy when I do (roughly 28 rows x 110 columns of linked cells over two worksheets in the master file) , not to mention requiring updating if the file locations if they are ever moved.

I was wondering if the data consolidate tool will be a faster way of consolidating the data or is there no difference?
 

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Have you looked at Power Query? This an efficient way of collating data from Workbooks.
 
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Stumbled across it just there in my googling but I haven't used it before. Will lag be an issue with accessing 14 files and updating so many cells or is that just unavoidable no matter the method?

I assume if the linked files are moved, there's no way to automatically update the links in excel too but with some quick messing about, it doesn't seem like too much effort to update the source locations so I can live with that.
 
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It depends on where the files are stored. If they are accessed across a network then the refreshing will be longer than if stored on a drive. You can set up the data to refresh every time you open the master file or every so often. Yes if you move the origin files then yes the refresh will not work, but to change the location is quite simple.

Power Query can take data from tables, worksheets and a whol host of other sources.

Power query may look difficult but there are loads of videos on You Tube to help.
 
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