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Functions Mode – Individual vs Group
MarketXLS functions work in individual and group mode. Individual mode is when each cell in Excel makes a call to API to get the information requested. Now, this can be sometimes heavy as you have as many connections going to the servers as many as symbols you have in the sheet. You may notice when notice your Excel may become slow if you have like more than 100 symbols and a few parameters in Individual mode.
In the group mode, MarketXLS understands your Excel sheets functions and tries to get all the data at once from the server. This data is then saved at a temp location in your local pc and Excel formulas are delivered from that temp location. This process is like a bit more efficient and faster. The reason is that the network communication is less frequent.
In Group mode you can also refresh all the data every 1 minute or 5 minutes. Not to say you can not do the same in Individual mode, its just that it may slow down Excel considerably if you have too many symbols. Now, since we first need to tell Excel which symbols to get data for (the ones we are tracking), we need to load a list of symbols. MarketXLS has built in list management system where you can manage 100s of lists. Lists are nothing but a collection of symbols. You can name your lists the way you want. If you call a function in a group mode MarketXLS need to know which list it needs to get the data for. If it does not understand it will not get the data. And will return a message below…
What this means is that this symbol is either not there in the “Loaded” list. So, create a list which has this symbol and load it. To do that click on “My Symbols” on the menu which will open up the list management interface. Create a list that has this symbol and load this list. There are multiple ways to add symbols to your lists. You can simply click on “Scan Symbols” and MarketXLS will go through all used cells in your open workbook and find out which ones are valid symbols and add them to the list box. After that you simply need to save that list with a name. You can also click on “Add Symbols” button where a cell selector will open up and allow you to select a range which has the symbols you want to track. Once you have your list/s created, simply click on “Load Selected List” to load a list. Now you will be able to use all functions on the symbols in that list.
You can have 1500 Symbols in a list and all functions should work just fine. You can click on Minute refresh and that data for symbols in that list will be updated every minute.
So, you have a choice to use any mode for running functions, you can give both a try and if your portfolio is small and you do not have lots to track Individual mode is the way to go, for heavy work and lots of symbols try out Group Mode. You can change between Group and Individual mode by going to the settings form under “Settings/Help” menu.
