Living Excel: GBM data straight into Excel

A regular Excel workbook with a Power Query query built in. One click on “Refresh All” and you have the current data from the GBM API. No programming, no macros, no add-in.

Who is it for? For everyone who works in Excel but cannot or does not want to connect to an API themselves. The query is already in the file — you only enter your API key and refresh.

Download Living Excel

The standard file contains all public data series of the catalogue for every country for which data is available.

Download Living Excel (.xlsx)

Note: This file does not contain an API key. Enter your own key before the first refresh — see step 2.

Ready to go in five steps

Download the file and open it in Excel.

On the “Konfiguration” sheet, enter your API key in the cell next to “ApiKey” and save.

On the “Data” ribbon, click “Refresh All” (or press Ctrl+Alt+F5).

On the first refresh, Excel asks how to access gbmapi.bl2020.com: select “Anonymous” and confirm with “Connect”.

The workbook authenticates against the API itself using the key you entered. This prompt appears once per machine and user and cannot be pre-set in the file.

Done — the data is in the “Dataseries” sheet. For every further update, step 3 is enough.

How the file is structured

Info

A short guide for the user, in German and English.

Dataseries

The data sheet: a flat table with seven columns.

Konfiguration

Holds the API key. In the standard file this sheet is visible so you can enter your own key. If a key is already embedded, the sheet is hidden.

The seven columns in the “Dataseries” sheet

• seriesid — ID of the data series
• seriesname — name of the data series
• country — country
• year — year
• period — “Year” for annual data, “Q1” to “Q4” for quarterly data, the English month name for monthly data
• date — date in dd/MM/yyyy format
• value — value

The flat table is meant as a basis for your own pivot tables and charts. The workbook does not contain any ready-made pivot tables, charts or calculated fields.

What the standard file contains

All public data series of the catalogue — currently 87 series covering residential construction, non-residential construction, construction output and economic climate — for every country for which data is available (currently 198). There is no period filter: the full available history is always loaded for each data series.

You can see which data series exist in the catalogue: gbmapi.bl2020.com/docs

You do not need to download the file again on a regular basis: the catalogue is queried live on every refresh, so new data series appear automatically.

You receive the countries you have booked

The query requests all countries but returns only those covered by your API key. Countries you have not booked are skipped without an error message. So if you have booked three countries, you receive exactly those three — this is not a fault.

Data volume and refresh duration

With three booked countries there are roughly 5,000 rows of data and the refresh completes within a few minutes. If all countries were booked, it would be around 344,000 rows and the refresh takes correspondingly longer — up to about ten minutes. Excel remains usable while it runs.

Requirements

✓Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer for Windows, or Microsoft 365

✓Internet access to https://gbmapi.bl2020.com (corporate networks may require a firewall or proxy exception)

✓A valid GBM API key

✓No macros, no add-in and no additional software required — the file is a plain .xlsx

Note: Excel in the browser (Excel for the web) cannot refresh Power Query and is therefore not suitable.

Refreshing is not tested and currently not supported for Excel for Mac.

Don’t have an API key yet?

Get in touch — we will help you.

Questions about Living Excel?

We support you with setup and data selection.