SparrowXL EIA Data Edition

1 — Download, then unblock the zip before extracting

Download the zip (40.9 MB). Windows marks internet downloads, and Excel refuses add-ins that carry the mark — a notification bar with no enable button.

On some company-managed machines the Unblock checkbox is absent — policy blocks internet add-ins outright. That is an IT conversation, not a setting; the LICENSE and third-party notices in the zip are written to make it an easy one.

2 — Add the add-in to Excel

Extract somewhere the folder can live (e.g. C:\SparrowXL\) — not Downloads, not a temp folder; Excel remembers the path. Then:

First, check your Excel's bitness — File → Account → About Excel, the top line ends “64-bit” or “32-bit”. The zip ships an add-in file for each:

Then: Excel → File → Options → Add-ins → at the bottom, Manage: Excel Add-ins → Go… → Browse… → pick your file → OK. On first load Excel shows a security notice naming the publisher — David Linton — with an option to trust it permanently.

The EnergyScope ribbon tab appears, and comes back on every Excel start. Don't double-click the XLL in Explorer — that opens it as a document and Excel complains about the file format; the Add-ins dialog is the way in.

3 — Point at the bundled data, build a sheet

Ribbon → Dataset Folder → pick the extracted eia-data folder. That is 130,391 petroleum series, ten years of history, local and offline — the bundle's vintage is stamped in eia-data\VINTAGE.txt.

Then New Sheet → WPSR Day. The sheet builds and fills itself. Everything is a formula — click any cell to see how it's made.

4 — Update EIA: one click, no Python

Ribbon → Update EIA. The add-in downloads EIA's official bulk file — from eia.gov directly, no middleman — and rebuilds the dataset in place. Run it again and it says “already up to date”: it checks EIA's own change signals instead of re-downloading.

From then on it watches for you: when EIA publishes, the ribbon shows NEW DATA, the sheet's labels light up, and your workbook tells you it is behind before you ask. The bundled copy will be behind EIA within days of its cut — so your first refresh is the freshness ladder demonstrating itself.

77 analytics functions

Forecasts, spreads, seasonality, signals — computed inside the add-in, straight from your files. Turn the Wi-Fi off; your analysis keeps working. No SQL anywhere, ever: a series ID in a formula, data in the sheet.

Sheets that build themselves

The New Sheet menu builds complete analyst pages in one click — WPSR Day among them: parameter cells with dropdowns, change tracking, labelled series. Each page design is a plain JSON recipe that ships beside the add-in; a new page design is a file, not a release.

The freshness ladder

Freshness is a chain, and every link reports honestly:

It announces on workbook open, and it works unattended — your workbook tells you it is behind before you ask.

“Microsoft has blocked this file” — step 1 was skipped. Delete the extracted folder, unblock the zip, extract again.

Listed as Active, publisher shown, but no EnergyScope tab — and formulas return #NAME? — Excel accepted the add-in file for the other bitness and it fails silently. Check File → Account → About Excel, untick the wrong file (File → Options → Add-ins), and browse to the matching one: 64-bit Excel takes EnergyScope-AddIn64-packed.xll, 32-bit takes EnergyScope-AddIn-packed.xll. If the bitness already matches, the same symptom means the block mark (step 1) or the missing .NET 8 Desktop Runtime — in that order.

“The file format and extension … don't match” / “could be corrupted or unsafe” — nothing is corrupted. Excel says this when an add-in file is opened as a document (double-clicked) or when the wrong-bitness file is re-attempted at startup. Load the matching file through File → Options → Add-ins instead.

Formulas show one value instead of a table — your Excel predates dynamic arrays; it needs Microsoft 365 or 2021+.

Anything else: type =ES.Version() in a cell and send what you see with =ES.Feedback("what happened") — or email [email protected].