What is Connect live?

A live connection queries the source directly every time the view changes, rather than using a stored copy of the data.

The benefit is currency — the workbook always reflects the source as it is now, which matters for operational dashboards where a few hours of lag would be misleading.

The cost is that performance depends entirely on the source, and every interaction sends another query. On a busy dashboard against an operational database, that load is noticeable at the database end as well as in the workbook.

The alternative is an extract, which is usually much faster and offline-capable, at the price of being only as current as its last refresh. The choice is essentially *freshness versus speed*.