Link to External Excel Files

How to link to a plain Excel file from within an OfficeConnect workbook.

Question: Can I create a link from my OfficeConnect workbook to a regular (non-OfficeConnect) Excel file?

Yes — use Excel’s standard external link

OfficeConnect workbooks are Excel files. You can use Excel’s standard external reference syntax to pull data from any other Excel file:

=[OtherWorkbook.xlsx]Sheet1!$A$1

This creates a standard Excel external link — it’s not an OfficeConnect-managed link, so it works just like any other Excel cross-workbook reference.

If you need to send a colleague a version of your OfficeConnect report that doesn’t contain any live OfficeConnect connections (e.g., they don’t have OfficeConnect installed and you want them to see the data, not n/a placeholders):

1
Refresh the report so all data is loaded Click Refresh to populate all cells with current data.
2
Copy the entire worksheet Right-click the sheet tab → Move or Copy → check Create a copy → place at end.
3
On the copy, select all cells (Ctrl+A) and copy
4
Paste as values only Right-click → Paste Special → Values. This replaces the OfficeConnect-linked cells with static values.
5
Save the copy as a new Excel file File → Save As → give it a different name. This file has no OfficeConnect dependencies.