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Link paths

Each linkage formula contains a reference to the open Working Papers file (the Active File), or a specified Working Papers file, known as the link path.

Changing a link path is a convenient way to update your Word or Excel documents:

  • After a year end close, to update links to reference the new year's file.
  • After copying documents from one Working Papers file to another, to update links to reference the new file.
  • When you want to update most or all links to reference a specific file or the active file.

You can change multiple DDE link paths at the same time by using the Link Paths function. Alternatively, you can change a single DDE or UDF link path in Excel by manually changing the linkage formula in the Formula Bar.

Change multiple DDE link paths

You can change the source file for documents composed of multiple DDE links by modifying the document link path to reference the Active File or a specific file.

To change DDE link paths to a specific file:

  1. Open the Word or Excel document containing the links you want to modify.
  2. On the Add-ins tab, in the Connector group, click Tools | Link Paths….
  3. In the Link Paths dialog, select the link path you want to modify.
  4. Click Browse.
  5. Locate and select the appropriate file. Click Open.

The link path is now set to the specific file.

To change DDE link paths to the Active File:

  1. Open the Word or Excel document containing the links you want to modify.
  2. On the Add-ins tab, in the Connector group, click Tools | Link Paths….
  3. In the Link Paths dialog, select the link path you want to modify.
  4. Click Set Active.
  5. In the Dynamic Data Exchange dialog, select the appropriate data source. Click OK.

The link path is now set to the Active File.

After you change a DDE link connection, all DDE links in the document will update. We recommend you perform a recalculation (Tools | Recalculate) to refresh the data retrieved from the Working Papers database.

Notes:

  • In the Link Paths dialog, the Count column indicates how many linkage formulas in the current document correspond to the respective path. The Type column indicates whether the linkages are DDE or UDF based.
  • If a Working Papers file no longer exists at a specified path, the link path will display a broken Working Papers icon. To fix the broken link, click Browse, then select an existing file.

Manually change a link path

Connector linkage formulas create a link path to the current active file by default. You can redirect Excel linkage formulas to a specific file by manually changing the path in the Formula Bar. Manually redirecting Excel linkages allows users to quickly change link paths to any Working Papers file.

UDF

To link a specific file in UDF linkages, pass the client_file parameter as the last argument in the function. For example, the account report balances function cw_act() can be specified as follows:

  • Default active file: cw_act("BR,"101")
  • File specified: cw_act("BR","101","C:\Program Files (x86)\Caseware\Data\Samp01\Samp01.ac")

DDE

To link a specific file in DDE linkages, pass the client_file parameter prior to the DDE function. For example, the account report balances formula can be specified as follows:

  • Default active file: cwin32|Data!'CWEval|active|act("BR","101")|'
  • File specified: cwin32|Data!'CWEval|C:\Program Files (x86)\Caseware\Data\Samp01\Samp01.ac|act("BR","101")|'

Notes:

  • Hard-coded links, where the client_file argument is specified, are not modified during a copy template or year end close in the Working Papers file. If you create a new file after a year end close, you will need to redirect the link paths to the new file.
  • If Use Client File opened in Working Papers for UDFs is enabled in Tools | Options, linkage formulas that are linked to a specific Working Papers file will not update based on the opened active file.
  • If a linkage formula is linked to a specific Working Papers file, the link will only update if changes are made in that specific file.

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