Join key propagation including receiving a request to generate a referencing worksheet linked from a data source worksheet, wherein the data source worksheet is a presentation of a data set organized in columns from two data source tables joined using a join key, and wherein the referencing worksheet presents at least a subset of the data set presented by the data source worksheet; retrieving data source worksheet metadata and the join key using a reference to the data source worksheet metadata in the request; determining an additional column from the two data source tables to add to the referencing worksheet, wherein the additional column is excluded from the data source worksheet; and creating, using the data source worksheet metadata and the join key, the referencing worksheet presenting the columns from the two data source tables with the additional column.