external references aren't updating as expected

[OneLooseCrank]

Hi all,
I have a markbook that is pulling in data from an external reference. There are a lot of external references in the markbook, and quite a few versions of the markbook (for different departments) all referencing the one data sheet. What I seem to be experiencing is that the markbook is retaining out-of-date data from the external file and not updating to show the newest data. If I open both the workbook and the reference workbook, the references all update. I assumed that I could alter the data in the external file and the markbooks would reassess this reference each time the markbook is opened. Our IT guy has said that excel will open the reference file in the background to read from but this doesn't seem to reflect what I'm experiencing.
So, is this expected behaviour? Is there an easier way to have the markbook. BTW, we are still on Windows 7 and whatever the last excel for that system was. Update to Win10 over the coming months.

Thanks,
OLC

 

[OneLooseCrank]

If anyone could shed any light on this, I'd be veryappreciative. I'm using a reference for a value in workbook 1, andusing hlookup to return values from workbook 2. I’m finding that as the datachanges in workbook 2, workbook 1 is failing to update correctly. I need toopen WB2 for WB1 to reassert the reference data. I don’t want to have to forceit like this each time as there are many workbooks referencing this one datasheet.
Thanks,
OLC