> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://knowledge.cloudquant.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Understanding Queries

> Overview of point-in-time and time series query types in the Excel Plug-In.

# Excel plug-in: understanding queries

Queries with CloudQuant Data Liberator allow you to retrieve two distinct types of data: **point-in-time data** or **time series data**.

## Point-in-time data

When requesting point-in-time data, you typically query information for the current moment. However, you can specify any particular point in time to examine how data appeared at that previous moment — known as the "as of" date in CloudQuant Data Liberator terminology.

When reading a dataset with point-in-time queries, the system returns data for your specified time. This lets you retrieve historical snapshots showing what information was known at earlier dates.

<Tip>
  Think of point-in-time data structurally: one row for each given trading symbol.
</Tip>

## Time series data

Time series data returns multiple rows for each trading symbol from your specified dataset. For instance, requesting Minute Bar stock prices over a ten-minute period generates 10 data rows per symbol.