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JA50's avatar
JA50
Explorer | Level 3
7 years ago

Dropbox excel sheet update from web

I have an excel sheet that pulls football scores from the web. The info only updates new scores if I open the excel sheet from the original computer I made sheet on. I want to be able to open my drop...
Delete
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Web
  • atccodex's avatar
    atccodex
    7 years ago

    The file is static when it is on dropbox. Excel only queries when it is actually open, so sitting in dropbox isn't the right solution.

    Excel won't auto update on its own, so you would almost need to write a web scraping script that updates the file locally on a schedule, then dropbox would sync the local file to the web, and then you can view it anywhere.

Jane's avatar
Jane
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
7 years ago
Hey JA50, if I’m understanding correctly, you’d like to link your excel files to a similar fashion to the one described here. (Please do let me know if I’m following the wrong path & this isn’t what you’d like to accomplish.)
 
If so, please note that in Microsoft Excel, you can create links in a workbook to another workbook or file on your computer using a formula that references an external location. When this link is created, it points to a location on your own hard drive.
 
When your workbook is downloaded onto another's computer, the locations that your formula points to are no longer there. The link in the workbook is looking for a specific place, for example /Your_Computer/Your_User/File, and that location is no longer accessible from a different computer.
 
To learn more about relative and external paths in Excel please consult this Microsoft support page. 
 
From there, while we are unable to support you in configuring Microsoft Excel to work the way you would like, we suggest perhaps using wildcards in your formulas. Wildcards, such as "%HOMEPATH%”, if other users have the Dropbox folder located in the default location, would let you point to a location without having to worry about different usernames in the path.
 
If you’re not interested in the option I mentioned above or you had something different in mind, can you please let me know how Dropbox would come into play in the most ideal scenario? 
 
Thanks again for getting in touch on our Community to discuss this matter & I’ll be awaiting your next post here with an update on how my suggestions work for you. Enjoy the rest of your day until we talk again! 
  • JA50's avatar
    JA50
    Explorer | Level 3
    7 years ago

    Maybe excel is not right to solve my problem. I have a football pool where 8 players have 4 teams each. We use an excel sheet and have to manuaaly input the number of wins for each team after the Sunday (and Monday night) games. I just want to have the computer do it automatically. I assumed I could put an excel sheet into my dropbox, have excel querry by using Data, From Web. But the querry only runs when I open excel sheet from the computer I originally put the excel sheet into dropbox from. If I open dropbox excel sheet from another computer, the querry doesn't run.

    Isn't Dropbox just a cloud location on the web? Shouldn't it always update with the scores as the website is updated?

    • atccodex's avatar
      atccodex
      Icon for Super User alumni rankSuper User alumni
      7 years ago

      The file is static when it is on dropbox. Excel only queries when it is actually open, so sitting in dropbox isn't the right solution.

      Excel won't auto update on its own, so you would almost need to write a web scraping script that updates the file locally on a schedule, then dropbox would sync the local file to the web, and then you can view it anywhere.

      • JA50's avatar
        JA50
        Explorer | Level 3
        7 years ago

        This sounds like the way to go. thank you

    • Jane's avatar
      Jane
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
      7 years ago
      Hey JA50, I appreciate it that you circled back to us with the detailed description of how you’d like to setup excel & Dropbox. atccodex has included some great advice above (& thanks a lot for that, it was very helpful! :slight_smile: ), though let me elaborate on my previous reply a bit for you below!
       
      Now JA50, I’m not sure how you could go about updating your excel sheet from your online source as it’s not my area of expertise, though you may have a look at Microsoft’s resources regarding that & take it from there. 
       
      When it comes to Dropbox though, I’d recommend having a look at your account online to see if your latest edits are updated on your excel file as expected (meaning from your device to your account online) :desktop: ➡️ 🕸️. If you can see everything as expected on our website, then this indicates that you’ve followed the right path. From there, we can shift our focus to your second computer. In case you’re still unable to view the last edits you’ve made to your spreadsheet, then this could indicate an underlying syncing issue on your second device 🕸️ ➡️:computer:. 
       
      Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on your initial question, though do let us know if you have any follow-up queries. Thanks again! 

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