If you are an intensive pivot-table-using business, slicing and dicing data into meaningful chunks, you may need to refresh the data often. When you are working with data in Power Pivot, from time to time you might need to refresh the data from the source, recalculate the formulas that you have created in calculated columns, or make sure data presented in a PivotTable is up-to-date.

Per Microsoft Support, you can refresh the data for PivotTables connected to external data, such as a database (SQL Server, Oracle, Access, or other), Analysis Services cube, data feed, and many other sources. You can also refresh data from a source table in the same or a different workbook. And you can set your workbook to refresh its PivotTable data automatically when you open it. By default, PivotTables are not refreshed automatically, but you can specify that the PivotTable is automatically refreshed when you open the workbook that contains the PivotTable.

  1. The quickest update is to use the keystroke combination of Alt+F5.  In the normal MS Windows environment an F5 key will refresh your view, but in Excel the F5 key is programed to open the Go To dialog box.  By adding the Alt key to the mix, it will refresh what we view.
refresh-pivot-table

Next time you are using an Excel pivot table, give Alt+F5 a try!

  • Another way to refresh is to go to the Power Pivot tab at the top of your Excel window and choose Update All.


Tip:  To update all PivotTables in your workbook at once, click Analyze > Refresh All.

  • The third way to refresh is to use the Data tab and Refresh All.

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