DataFinder is Knoema’s plug-in that brings the world’s most comprehensive database automatically and intelligently into your workflows in Microsoft Office and Google Apps. Available for Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Google Slides, Google Sheets, and Google Docs.
Installation Guide
For Microsoft Excel and Word, go to Insert, Get Add-Ins, and search for Knoema from within the application, or install both from the Microsoft store.
For Google Slides, Sheets, or Docs, go to Add-ons, Get add-ons, and search for Knoema.
To Uninstall DataFinder from Excel: Insert → My Add-ins. Click the three dots on Knoema add-in and select remove.
DataFinder is not available for all systems. Contact your system administrator for more information. Excel custom functions are currently not supported on iPad or in one-time purchase versions of Office 2019 or earlier. Read more here and here.
Microsoft provides information about all deployment options at https://docs.microsoft.com/
Open DataFinder
Once installed, double-click the DataFinder icon, which will appear as a large blue K.
In Microsoft Excel, this icon will appear in the Data menu. In Microsoft Word, this icon will appear in the Home menu. If it does not appear in either of these, go to Insert, My add-ins to confirm that Knoema DataFinder is installed and double-click it to activate.
In Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, go to Add-ons → Knoema DataFinder → Start.
The DataFinder panel should open on the right side of the screen:
Log in and out
Logging in will allow you to access your or your organization’s private data as well as see a list of your bookmarked and recently viewed data.
Enterprise users should log in with the same credentials that they use on their web portal.
To log in or out, click the button at the bottom right of the DataFinder panel.
Find data
My Data
You can access your bookmarked data, recently viewed data, and personal datasets (if applicable) by clicking on your name at the bottom of the right panel in DataFinder. To exit My Data, click the DataFinder bar at the top of the panel.
With Search
Insert a search query (e.g., “production of lemons in italy”) in the search bar near the top of the DataFinder panel and either hit enter or the magnifying glass. A blue progress bar will appear at the top of the panel, and relevant time series will appear.
In Microsoft Word and Google Docs only, you can choose one of four settings to determine how narrow or wide the search should be. Choosing more bars to the left of the eye will result in more time series returned by the search.
Automatically
By default, DataFinder will only search for data when you insert a query into the search bar, and the eye in the top left corner of the DataFinder panel will appear grey. Clicking the eye will toggle automatic searching on or off. When the eye is blue, DataFinder will search for data automatically. In Excel and Google Sheets, it will search for data every time you hit Enter based on the content in the most recently edited cell. In Word, Google Docs, and Google Slides, it will search based on the content of the entire document or slide.
Insert, Update, and Explore Data
Click any search result to see the corresponding chart along with options to insert that information into your document.
In Excel and Google Sheets, selecting the “Insert Data” option will insert formulas to call the relevant data into the current cell. Narrow the selection down by choosing a specific time range from the options above the chart.
In Google Slides and Docs and Microsoft Word, you have the option to Insert Chart instead of the Data. Select where you would like the chart to go and click Insert Chart. You can then modify or add a description. In Docs and Word you have the additional option to Describe that inserts a description of the data that you can then edit.
If additional data is added to the dataset, refreshing your document, e.g., by closing and opening it again, will automatically include the new data.
Choose the buttons labeled Explore, Explore Data, and Explore on Web to explore and insert related time series from the dataset both in DataFinder and in Dataset Viewer.