Hello! I wanted to see if anyone had a potential solution to a tricky problem of mine. I am in charge of regularly updating an Excel file that summarizes data from a very large dataset contained in one of the tabs. Every week I update the raw data tab, refresh the formulas in the calculation tab, and send the updated workbook to the client. However, the size of the raw data tab is a problem - it is making the file very large and the client has difficulty opening it. They have asked us to reduce the file size so they can continue viewing the file.

I was wondering if there was a clean way to offshore the raw data tab and link formulas to it. Of course, there is the option of keeping the data in an external Excel workbook and linking to that, but this creates the common issues with external workbook links and formula breakage (especially when we send the file to the client, who doesn't have access to our internal folders). Is there some sort of external database or way to link formulas to something like a shared Google Sheet that could allow us to store the raw data outside of the workbook and reduce the file size? This might be a fruitless search, but wanted to ask around and see if anyone had ideas - thanks in advance!