There are a lot of people that using external workbook references during their daily work. A sales manager for example could summarize the annual sales of a department by summing 12 monthly reports that are stored in 12 different workbooks. In this way he avoids copying all the data to a single workbook, making the annual report much more compact.
However there is a disadvantage of using external workbook references: if you move or delete one of the “independent” workbooks, then, when you reopen the “dependent” workbook, the following pop-up will appear:
The above limitation led me to write an Excel add-in that is capable to create a list of all the external workbook references of a workbook. In this way, the user can have a quick overview of all the references in the “dependent” workbook. Furthermore, the add-in can replace all the formulas that contain external references with their values. So, the user with a single click can clean the workbook from all the external references.
How to use it
The short video below demonstrates the add-in installation and use.
Tip
In general, I suggest you to avoid using external workbook references whenever it is possible. However, if this is impossible (for various reasons), then with this add-in you can have a clear overview of what happens in the “dependent” workbook.