Spreadsheet improvements 9/9: Innovation
This is the ninth and final deep dive of the “9 ways to improve your spreadsheets” blog series.
This post elaborates on the importance of innovating within your data sheets and things to consider moving toward more specialised solutions.
Written By Séan Smith
When “we’ve always done it this way” no longer does the trick…
If you find yourself constantly sending and receiving emails with Excel sheets attached, or if you’re noticing that different departments stats don’t add up upon closer inspection, then maybe it’s time to reconsider using spreadsheets for your reporting.
In our experience, many companies use spreadsheets as a legacy tool and when probing for the purpose of this approach we usually hear ‘well, that’s what we’ve always used’.
While Excel sheets may be fit for purpose most of the time, there are instances where integrating additional tools can enhance your reporting process. Don’t get us wrong, spreadsheets are great for preparing raw data or for displaying and filtering data, but for more robust and reliable processing, other solutions might be more suitable.
In this blog entry we will talk you through some options that can complement your spreadsheets, can help streamline your reporting processes, and can mitigate and minimize errors.
Remember that purpose is important when considering making these changes so be mindful if you are looking to improve your a) data collation, b) data processing, or c) data reporting/ insights distribution.
Here are 3 key benefits of revamping your approach:
1. File Size Management
If your reports/sheets too large to email, consider using a front-end tool to display your information or results. A separate ‘display’/ ‘visualisation’ sheet or a dashboarding tool can drastically reduce the size of your ‘calculating’ sheet.
2. Faster, Up-to-Date Figures
Managing multiple sheets for a single task often requires frequent refreshing. Creating specialised and centralised solutions can reduce the need to ‘send out’ reports and can allow for ‘self-service’ options. To achieve that centralisation, you should consider Macros that update key datasets upon opening spreadsheets or dashboarding tools can speed up data distribution and can reduce the demand on small analytics teams.
3. A Balanced Approach
Improving your a) data collation, b) data processing, or c) data reporting/insights distribution doesn’t have to be an either-or situation. There are many options and combinations thereof available for housing or displaying information.
Here are a couple of extra tools you can use in various combinations alongside Excel:
Tableau is powerful visual data analysis tool, suitable for creating interactive and shareable dashboards.
PowerBI is Microsoft’s AI-powered data analytics tool allows for interactions with the data via dashboards and reports.
Consider the best fit for your company from the following combinations of solutions:
- EXCEL & EXCEL: use separate Excel sheets for centralised storage and processing to optimise data collation and data processing and a different sheet for data reporting/insights distribution (for visualisation of graphs, charts, etc.)
- EXCEL & Tableau/ PowerBi: Collect, collate, and store data in Excel and use a dashboard front-end tool (like Tableau/ PowerBi) for visualisation and reporting
- EXCEL & Warehouse (SQL) & EXCEL: use Excel to collate raw data, upload the data to a data warehouse (like SQL) for manipulation and storage, show the processed data in a linked Excel front-end spreadsheet to allow for stakeholder manipulations.
- Automated Data Feeds (APIs)to Data Warehouse (SQL) & Tableau/ PowerBi: similar to the solution above, use Excel to collate raw data from various sources, then upload the processed data to a data for manipulation and storage, but, as opposed to option C, show the processed data in a linked dashboard front-end like Tableau/ PowerBi for visualisation and reporting.
Hopefully this has given you some ideas on how to approach more user-friendly sheets.
Would you like to talk to us about ways to innovate your processes? We’d like to have a chat! Feel free to contact us for a free consultation.