A Freiburg, Germany-based vendor is converting the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet from a singular two-dimensional application into an interface that presents global data fed from a multi-dimensional back-end.
Typically, when a user makes modifications to an Excel spreadsheet, those changes are applied only to that standalone version. However, Enterprise Spreadsheets by Jedox GmbH, a vendor of enterprise technologies for Excel applications, allows this data to be shared by all Excel users across the organization.
“Instead of having a local spreadsheet model, you have an enterprise-wide spreadsheet model,“ said the company’s CEO Kristian Raue.
With Excel, data is stored in the spreadsheet in a two-dimensional row-and-column format, which, according to Raue, is “way too small; that magnitude doesn’t work if you want to do that on an enterpise scale.”
Instead of storing the data in the spreadsheet, Jedox’s technology stores it in a multi-dimensional server that can capture the complexity of a global organization’s data, parsing it according to dimensions like region, customer, and product. The spreadsheet essentially becomes the front end for this back-end database.
The repository, the Palo server, is an online open source product that is freely available on the company site. With it, businesses can build their own enterprise-wide data models to connect different spreadsheets across the company.
Raue said that using a familiar user interface to access this complex global data means companies can take advantage of existing investments made to train users in Excel. The sole novel component, he noted, is learning the Palo data model.
Calgary, Alta.-based Grid Dynamics Inc., is a consulting company that provides software and professional services to implement Jedox technologies including Enterprise Spreadsheets. Consultant Robin McKinney said adopters of the technology range from enterprise to small and medium-sized businesses seeking to rid the heavy dependency on manual data manipulation, a task often required of a two-dimensional spreadsheet.
Instead of having a local spreadsheet model, you have an enterprise-wide spreadsheet model
When deploying the technology, the first step, said McKinney, is to ascertain a business’ data source and its quality before converting it. Then, training is needed to help users better query the data. “There is an education process to help them understand,” he said, “in the past they were dealing with a two-dimensional world of an Excel spreadsheet.”
Businesses also have the option of buying an add-on, the Worksheet server, so users can access and modify Excel spreadsheets via the Web. Raue likens it to Google spreadsheets except it’s linked to the Palo server. As with desktop modifications, those made online are also immediately reflected across all spreadsheets.
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