How to cite spreadsheets or other documents for in-line citations?

Question

I've googled around and haven't found any information. I'm using data from a table in a spreadsheet, accessed from a website (The Statistics Bureau of Japan) and I don't know how I should cite it using Harvard style. At the moment, I've come up with this mess:

Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2015) Population by Age (5-Year Group and 3 Groups) and Sex (as of October 1 of Each Year) -Total population (from 1920 to 2000) [Microsoft Excel spreadsheet]. Tokyo: Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Available from: http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/ListE.do?bid=000000090004&cycode=0 [accessed 27 November 2015]

Or to break this down:

Organisation name (year of publication) Title of spreadsheet [Microsoft Excel spreadsheet]. Place of publication: publisher. Available from: URL [date accessed]

But then, I'm not sure how to cite it in-line. How should I reference it? By the lengthy spreadsheet title? By the equally lengthy "Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications"?

Answer 1

I'm not sure how strict are Harvard Publication Style guidelines, but I would use the following approach. Since the name of the organization in question is used twice in the reference, I would use the second mention to introduce its abbreviation and then use that abbreviation as the author keyword. This approach still retains the accuracy of the information, but, at the same time, solves the problem (inconvenience) of having to cite in-text a rather long phrase. Using your example:

[Reference]

SBJ/MIAC (2015) Population by Age (5-Year Group and 3 Groups) and Sex (as of October 1 of Each Year) - Total population (from 1920 to 2000) [Microsoft Excel spreadsheet]. Tokyo: Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (SBJ/MIAC). Available from: http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/ListE.do?bid=000000090004&cycode=0 [Accessed: 27 November 2015]

[In-text citation]

The above-mentioned trend is illustrated by the data, recently reported by Japan's national statistics agency (SBJ/MIAC, 2015)...

Note: Relevant webpages and documents I've used for this answer: this document and this page (the ABS example there is IMHO incorrect - ABS is not defined, so I have fixed it in my answer).