Microsoft Excel · Advanced modeling and platform-dependent features · Intermediate
Use linked stocks and geography data types
Resolve linked company and place entities, extract fields, and refresh without mistaking variable online data for fixed facts.
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Quick answer: Select company or location text and choose Data > Stocks or Data > Geography. Verify the resolved entity’s card before extracting fields with Insert Data. A recognized icon means a link exists, not that Excel chose the entity you intended.
Prerequisites and safe scope
This workflow targets English Excel for Microsoft 365 desktop on Windows with an existing eligible account, internet access, and the linked-data feature available. Microsoft documents Microsoft 365 accounts or free Microsoft Accounts and supported editing languages including English. The feature page, not the broader applicability list of a financial-source article, governs availability. Do not infer support in every perpetual Excel edition.
Use public company and country names in a practice workbook. Converting text establishes an online data connection. Do not enter private client identifiers or personal financial holdings for this exercise. The steps below describe account-dependent features; no account creation, connection, or live quote retrieval has been performed for this tutorial.
Resolve a company and inspect its identity
On a sheet named Companies, enter Company in A1 and Microsoft Corporation in A2. Select A1:A2 and create an Excel table with a header row.
- Select A2 and choose Data > Stocks.
- Wait for the linked-data icon. If Excel shows a question-mark selector instead, open it, search using a more precise public company name, and choose the intended match.
- Click the linked-data icon to open the card. Inspect the company identity, instrument, and exchange information where available. Similar company names and multiple listings are reasons to verify rather than guess.
- With A2 selected, choose Insert Data, then an available field such as Price. Inspect its unit or currency and any available timestamp/source information.
The acceptance check is structural: A2 contains the intended linked entity and the inserted field agrees with its card at that point. There is no fixed expected price in this tutorial. Prices can change, be delayed, or be unavailable, and displayed market data is not an investment recommendation.
Resolve a place separately
On a second sheet named Places, enter Place in A1 and France in A2. Convert the range to a table, select A2, and choose Data > Geography. Open the card and check that the result is the country, not an unrelated place with a similar name. Use Insert Data to extract Population if that field is available.
The country name is the input fixture; the returned population is a provider value, not a timeless answer. Record the provider and retrieval context if you use such a field in a report. A population estimate, a census count, and a price quote can have very different dates and definitions.
Test a changed entity and refresh
Replace the Places input with Germany and convert or resolve it as Geography again if necessary. Reopen the card and verify that the entity changed. The extracted Population field should refer to Germany, not remain a pasted constant from France. Do not assume a change in displayed number alone proves the identity is right.
For a linked cell, right-click and choose Data Type > Refresh. This refreshes that linked data type, including other cells of the same type. Avoid Refresh All when you only intend to refresh this feature, since it also affects other connections and PivotTables in a workbook.
Save and troubleshoot
Save as XLSX and reopen. Check the icons, entity cards, and extracted fields, then refresh if connectivity permits. Saved data can remain visible when a current refresh is unavailable; do not label it current without checking.
If conversion fails, check internet access, account eligibility, editing language, and ambiguous spelling. If an extraction fails, inspect the entity’s available fields rather than replacing missing values with invented figures. For precise worksheet totals over your own numeric data, see SUM; linked-source verification is a separate responsibility.