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Excel Refresh Time Question

Anonymous
2024-06-05T16:44:07+00:00

Hey everyone. I have a sheet that I refresh that pulls data from an external source, it takes around 30 minutes to refresh everytime I need to refresh it. I got an inquiry from someone about adding another tab within the workbook to make one of their tasks easier to do. This new tab will simply just reference other parts of the existing workbook, but these workbook tabs rely on the refresh.

My question is, if this new tab is created, that simply just references EXISTING tabs that rely on the refresh, will that new tab increase the run time?

Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Andreas Killer 144.1K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-06-06T10:22:59+00:00

    My question is, if this new tab is created, that simply just references EXISTING tabs that rely on the refresh, will that new tab increase the run time?

    The exact technical answer is yes.

    If we make a new file, write 1 into A1 and =A1+1 into A2, we have a refresh time of n seconds.

    Your are asking: Will a formula =A2+1 in A3 increase the runtime?

    Yes, the calculation time of the formulas itself will increase by 100%, because now we have 2 formulas.

    However, the internal calculation time is so short that just loading the calculation chain and the engine probably takes a thousand times as long. For a human, it therefore makes no difference whether you have one or two or a few more formulas.

    If a super-extra-ordinary formula in A1 takes 30 minutes to calculate and you add the formula =A1 anywhere it will not increase the runtime significantly... for a human.

    Andreas.

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