For some Excel workbooks saved to Excel Services, all the data is stored in the workbook. To update the data in Excel Services, the Excel workbook must be saved again. For other workbooks, there are one or more connections to external data sources, such as a database or OLAP cube. These connections contain information about how to locate, log in, query, and access the external data source. Although this connection information can be stored in the workbook, often it is stored in an Office Data Connection (.odc) file, especially when the data is shared by many users and the connection information needs to be updated. The workbook author or an administrator can create the connection information by using Excel 2007 to author the connection, and then to export the connection information to a .odc file.

A Data Connection Library (DCL) is a special SharePoint document library that can be defined as a trusted location library and that makes it easy to store, secure, share, and manage .odc files. For example an administrator may need a to move a database from a test server to a production server, or update a query that accesses the data. By using one .odc file saved in a DCL, administration of this connection information is much easier and the user’s access to data is more convenient because all workbooks use the same connection file and a refresh operation, whether on the client or server computer, gets up-to-date changes to that connection file. You can even set up Office SharePoint Server and a user’s client computer to automatically detect changes to the connection file and use the most up-to-date version of that connection file.

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