My co-worker and I were working on two different versions of the same file . Each had a different name -- let's call them file A (mine) & file B (his). Both versions pointed to a third file (file C) on our server using links.
File A was saved locally to my desktop and was open in Excel.
My coworker made changes to file C , which updated the related values on file B.
My co-worker saved file B to the server with these changes and closed the file.
I then opened file B in Excel without updating the links (and I did not open file C). Whenever my formulas in file A linked to the same place on file C as the links in file B, the cell in file A adopted the value that file B was displaying.
Our working theory is that Excel stores link values as a variable in the personal workbook rather than the workbook you are in. Since file B brought in a newer value for the variable, it automatically adopted the new value for file A.
Does this jive with anyone's knowledge of how Excel works? We're trying to figure out how it happened so we avoid the situation in the future.
File A was saved locally to my desktop and was open in Excel.
My coworker made changes to file C , which updated the related values on file B.
My co-worker saved file B to the server with these changes and closed the file.
I then opened file B in Excel without updating the links (and I did not open file C). Whenever my formulas in file A linked to the same place on file C as the links in file B, the cell in file A adopted the value that file B was displaying.
Our working theory is that Excel stores link values as a variable in the personal workbook rather than the workbook you are in. Since file B brought in a newer value for the variable, it automatically adopted the new value for file A.
Does this jive with anyone's knowledge of how Excel works? We're trying to figure out how it happened so we avoid the situation in the future.