How to use WEBSERVICE and FILTERXML functions to get data directly from the web and automatically update in Excel

Microsoft Excel is great for organizing data. But if you need information that changes constantly—like stock prices, weather updates, or cryptocurrency rates—you don't need to copy numbers from websites every time they change.

 

Fortunately, Excel has two built-in functions, WEBSERVICE and FILTERXML, that can pull data directly from the web and update automatically. These two functions are on the list of lesser-known Excel functions that can save you a lot of time. So, you don't need any special add-ins or subscriptions - just these two functions and a basic understanding of how websites structure their data.

How to get raw data from a website using the WEBSERVICE function

 

The syntax is very simple but the result is crude

The WEBSERVICE function is Excel's built-in tool for retrieving data directly from the Internet . The function sends a request to a web address ( URL ) and returns any information that page contains. The function returns data as text, usually in XML format , but can also be JSON or plain text. However, FILTERXML, used with WEBSERVICE, only works with XML, so JSON data cannot be parsed directly without conversion.

 

This function uses the following syntax:

=WEBSERVICE(url)

WEBSERVICE has only one parameter – the URL. The full web address from which you want to retrieve data. This must be a valid URL that returns data, not just a regular web page. Most APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) provide specific URLs to provide data in structured formats such as XML or JSON. The URL must be enclosed in quotation marks, or you can reference an Excel cell containing the URL.

Here's a simple example. If you wanted to get XML data from an API that provides exchange rates, you could use the following syntax:

=WEBSERVICE("https://api.example.com/exchange-rates")

This function returns everything the server sent back, usually a long text string with tags, brackets, or other formatting. This text string is raw and unfiltered, which is why you'll need FILTERXML to make sense of it later.

Note : WEBSERVICE only works with URLs that do not require authentication. If a site requires a login or an API key embedded in the header, this function will not work. You will need Power Query or VBA for those cases.

How to use the FILTERXML function to make web data usable

 

XPath queries let you select exactly what you want

The raw output from WEBSERVICE is often a mess of tags and text that Excel can't interpret on its own. That's where FILTERXML comes in. It extracts specific pieces of information from the XML data using XPath queries.

The syntax looks like this:

=FILTERXML(xml, xpath)

Here is the function of each parameter:

1. xml : The XML data you want to filter. This is usually the output from the WEBSERVICE function, but can also be a cell reference containing XML text or a manually entered XML string enclosed in double quotes.
2. xpath : An XPath query tells Excel exactly which part of the XML structure to extract. XPath uses path syntax (similar to file directories) to navigate through XML tags and attributes. For example, //price will extract all elements with the tag "price" from the XML data.

Assuming the WEBSERVICE function in cell A1 returns an XML file and you only need to extract the USD exchange rate, use:

 

=FILTERXML(A1, "//currency[@name='USD']")

This formula tells Excel to search inside the XML in cell A1, find the "currency" element whose "name" attribute equals "USD", and return its value.

If you want to extract multiple values ​​at once, FILTERXML will return them as an array. Using //currency instead will extract all exchange rates (if present in the XML), you can use them across multiple cells if you are using Excel 365 or 2021.

The tricky part is writing the XPath query correctly. XML data has a hierarchical structure—parent tags contain child tags—and your XPath needs to follow that structure. If the data has namespaces (prefixes like ns:currency), you need to account for these too, although most simple APIs don't use them.