Excel Data Types: Use Real-Time Stocks, Geography, and Custom Linked Data in 2026

Published: May 24, 2026 | Category: Excel | Reading Time: 6 min

Most Excel users think of spreadsheet data as static: numbers and text you type in yourself. But Excel has a powerful feature called Linked Data Types that fundamentally changes this assumption. With Excel Data Types, your cells can hold rich, structured data — like a live stock price, detailed geographic information, an employee record, or a product from your company catalog — that refreshes automatically from external sources.

In 2026, Excel Data Types have expanded well beyond the original Stocks and Geography types to include organizational data, Power BI datasets, and custom enterprise data. This guide explains how they work and how to use them to build smarter, more dynamic spreadsheets.

What Are Excel Data Types?

An Excel Data Type is a special cell value that contains a structured record of information, not just a single number or string. When you convert a cell to a Data Type, the cell displays an icon and a primary value (such as a company name or city), but it holds a full record of related fields underneath.

Think of it like a database record in a cell. You can then extract any field from that record using the dot notation formula =A2.Price, =A2.MarketCap, or =A2.Population — and those values update automatically when the underlying data source refreshes.

Excel includes several built-in data types available to Microsoft 365 subscribers:

Stocks: publicly traded companies with real-time and delayed price data, market cap, P/E ratio, 52-week highs/lows, and more

Geography: countries, states, cities, and regions with population, capital, area, time zone, and other attributes

Currencies: exchange rates that refresh to reflect current market values

Organizations (via Power BI): internal business data your company has configured as a custom data type

How to Use the Stocks Data Type

The Stocks data type is perfect for investment tracking, financial analysis, and any spreadsheet that needs current or historical company data. Here is how to use it:

Type company names or stock ticker symbols in a column — e.g. Microsoft, AAPL, Amazon, TSLA

Select the cells and go to Data > Stocks

Excel converts the cells — a small stock icon appears, and the cell shows the company name or ticker

To extract a field, click the icon in the cell to see available fields, or type a formula like =A2.Price, =A2.Change, or =A2.52WeekHigh

Refresh data anytime using Data > Refresh All, or right-click a Data Type cell and choose "Data Type > Refresh"

Available fields for the Stocks data type include: Price, Change, Change Percent, Market Cap, PE Ratio, EPS, Dividend Yield, Beta, 52-Week High, 52-Week Low, Volume, Previous Close, and many more.

How to Use the Geography Data Type

The Geography data type turns country, city, or region names into rich records packed with information. It is incredibly useful for demographic analysis, regional sales reports, and any work that involves comparing data across locations.

Type location names in a column — e.g. United States, France, Tokyo, California

Select the cells and go to Data > Geography

Excel converts the values — a map pin icon confirms successful conversion

Extract fields using formulas like =A2.Population, =A2.Area, =A2.Capital, =A2.TimeZone

Practical example: if you have a list of 50 countries in column A, you can add a Population column with =A2.Population, a GDP column with =A2.GDP, and an Area column with =A2.Area — all populated automatically without any manual data entry.

Custom Data Types with Power BI and Azure

In 2026, the real power of Excel Data Types for business users lies in custom organizational data types. These let your IT or data team publish internal datasets — product catalogs, employee directories, customer records, project data — as Data Types that any Excel user in your organization can access.

How it works:

Your data team publishes a Power BI dataset with designated key fields

That dataset becomes available as a Data Type in Excel under Data > Get Data > From Power BI

Users type a lookup key (like a product SKU or employee ID), convert it to the Data Type, and extract any field from the record

Data refreshes on demand or on a schedule, keeping spreadsheets aligned with the source system

This is a major productivity win for sales teams, operations, and finance — no more copy-pasting data between systems or maintaining manually-updated lookup tables.

Practical Project: Building a Live Portfolio Tracker

Here is a practical example that combines Stocks Data Types with dynamic formulas to build a real-time stock portfolio tracker:

Column A: Type your stock tickers (MSFT, AAPL, GOOGL, etc.) and convert to Stocks data type

Column B: =A2.Name — full company name

Column C: Enter your number of shares manually

Column D: =A2.Price — current price, refreshes live

Column E: =C2*D2 — your current position value

Column F: =A2.Change — today's price change

Column G: =A2.ChangePercent — percentage change today

Hit Refresh All and your entire portfolio updates instantly. No API, no scripts, no add-ins — just Excel.

Tips and Limitations to Know

Stocks data is delayed: built-in Stocks data is typically 15-20 minutes delayed, not real-time. For true real-time data, connect to a financial API via Power Query

Requires Microsoft 365 subscription: Data Types are not available in standalone Office 2019/2021 versions

Disambiguation may be needed: if Excel cannot match a cell value to a unique record, a sidebar appears prompting you to clarify which entity you mean

Fields available vary by entity: not every stock has every field populated, and geography fields differ for cities vs. countries

Conclusion

Excel Data Types are one of those features that, once you start using them, you cannot imagine going back to manually maintaining lookup tables and copy-pasting data. They bring the power of live, structured external data into the spreadsheet environment in a way that requires no programming knowledge and no add-ins.

Whether you are tracking a stock portfolio, building regional sales dashboards, or accessing your company catalog data, Linked Data Types in 2026 make your Excel spreadsheets smarter, more accurate, and dramatically easier to maintain.

Start with the Stocks or Geography data type today and explore what fields are available. Once you see how seamlessly live data flows into your formulas, you will be looking for more ways to put Data Types to work. Visit officelearner.net for more Excel tutorials and Microsoft 365 guides.