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I work as a consultant and spend five out of eight hours a day in Excel, and I want the features in this app so bad. Sadly, the only way I’ll be able to use th

I work as a consultant and spend five out of eight hours a day in Excel, and I want the features in this app so bad. Sadly, the only way I’ll be able to use these features is if Microsoft bought them out and integrated them into Excel. It’s ubiquitous at almost every workplace you go to, but the only innovation of the past 20 years seems to be PQ (which is awesome), and xlookup.

zobotar 4y ago
Have you tried https://www.spreadsheetweb.com/ https://www.spreadsheetweb.com/ ?
bergenty 4y ago
This can never compare to the sheer power that is excel. I’m glad they don’t move fast and break things here.
Lukas1994 4y ago
We're mainly working with high growth startups but people seem to be quite open to try out new tools. There will always be spreadsheets but once your company reaches a certain size they move their financial budgeting to Anaplan/Adaptive/TM1/Causal :)
- formercoder 4y ago
  I’ve been in this type of role and the problem is your clients send you XLSX and expect it in return, as well as other 3rd parties exchanging data as part of the engagement/transaction. Changing one company is hard but changing an industry is entirely different.
  - Lukas1994 4y ago
    Definitely agree — that’s why we have an Excel export. Importing is much harder so we haven’t worked much on that.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      I seriously don't recommend this as a solution for production, but Access is quite capable to suck data out of Excel and squeezing it back into a database. It is horrible but I am still used to businesses doing electronic data interchange through a text file on FTP servers so my standards are low.
  - cyanydeez 4y ago
    Basically what one needs is a db that treats excel as a basic unit of computing.
    - formercoder 4y ago
      Except the xlsx has to be human friendly
    - greggsy 4y ago
      PowerQuery is actually pretty capable, but it’s effectively a modern plug-in bolted into Excel. They’ve kind of left Excel behind.
sinenomine 4y ago
To be honest, apps of this kind seem not entirely too difficult to clone as an opensource project. Could you name the exact killer features you see in this one, compared to, say, etherpad or https://pad.envs.net https://pad.envs.net ?
- phpnode 4y ago
  this is definitely not true - there's a huge depth of complexity in these multi-dimensional databases. It's relatively easy to make a proof of concept - it's "just" an array of arrays after all, but building something production quality is a multi-year endeavour
zamadatix 4y ago
Excel added lambdas recently which is nice for defining custom functions without having to expect anything special on the client side (well, other than a newer copy of Excel at the moment).
- yold__ 4y ago
  Conceptually, I agree that it's cool, but oh man are there going to be some indecipherable formulas showing up in spreadsheets once the power users start using it.
einpoklum 4y ago
Talk to the LibreOffice people. You might even be able to sponsor work on the feature(s) you're interested in.
- greggsy 4y ago
  Excel is ubiquitous in almost every workplaces, so I can use the same workflows and templates, and don’t have to raise a request to install some new app, or permission to load client data in a cloud service operated somewhere. LibreOffice is so, so far behind the curve already, and I’d be laughed out of the building.
  - einpoklum 4y ago
    > Excel is ubiquitous in almost every workplaces Only in workplaces which use Windows. But granted, that's the large majority of them. > so I can use the same workflows and templates LibreOffice Calc opens Excel files well enough. > and don’t have to raise a request to install some new app It's not "some" new app. It has an estimated 200 Million users worldwide, and is probably the most popular FOSS application after browsers.
    - greggsy 4y ago
      Most Apple-centric enterprise workplaces use Office. With the exception of some features that are specific to O365-specific licenses, it has feature parity with the Windows version. LivreOffice does not do PowerQuery, and while it ‘opens Excel files well enough’, it probably only has 70% feature parity at most. They themselves claim that it has ‘tens of millions of users’… I’m not saying it’s a bad - or new - product. It’s just yet another customer requesting to install something. Very, very few (exactly zero) workplaces I have visited in Oceania and South East Asia are using it.
amelius 4y ago
They should really add the concept of array. Now you have to type "B2:B11" to refer to a range of cells, but why not "B2", and let the ":B11" part be implicit from the structure of the sheet?
- andrewmcwatters 4y ago
  Google Sheets has this, Excel doesn't?
  - zamadatix 4y ago
    I hadn't seen this before but when I went to try I couldn't get it to work in Google sheets, am I using the wrong syntax? Typing "=SUM(A1)" just gave me the sum of A1 not A1 through the rest of the data in the column while similarly "=SUM(A1:)" resulted in an error. "=SUM(A1:A)" gives me the whole column as expected, not stopping when the data breaks after A11.
    - Closi 4y ago
      This is the correct behaviour, =SUM(A1) should give you A1 in both Excel and Google Sheets. You are passing in a single cell into SUM, so only asking it to add that cell up (not the cells below). You must refer to a range of cells for it to work - in Excel this would be for instance =SUM(A:A). In Google Sheets: generally you write a formula and hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter which will turn it into an array formula. In Excel there are many more options in how to handle this, one of which is to define a table in Excel (Insert -> Table) and then refer to the table and column (=TableName[Column]).
  - Closi 4y ago
    It does - and you can do it multiple ways. The obvious way to do it is as follows: * Setup an excel sheet with "Name" and "Age" in A1 and B1, then put some sample data in. * Highlight the data and go insert -> table and hit 'ok' * Where it says Table Name: put in "Users" If we want to refer to the array of names in that table, you would now say =Users[Name] in a formula. As another example, if we wanted to find the average age, we could simply say =Average(Users[Age]) passing in the ages as an array. If we made another two columns - MathsScore and EnglishScore, we can either automatically create a column adding these up ([@MathsScore]+[@EnglishScore]), or alternatively these ranges can then be used in spill formulas.

zobotar 4y ago

Have you tried https://www.spreadsheetweb.com/ https://www.spreadsheetweb.com/ ?

bergenty 4y ago

This can never compare to the sheer power that is excel. I’m glad they don’t move fast and break things here.

Lukas1994 4y ago

We're mainly working with high growth startups but people seem to be quite open to try out new tools. There will always be spreadsheets but once your company reaches a certain size they move their financial budgeting to Anaplan/Adaptive/TM1/Causal :)

formercoder 4y ago
I’ve been in this type of role and the problem is your clients send you XLSX and expect it in return, as well as other 3rd parties exchanging data as part of the engagement/transaction. Changing one company is hard but changing an industry is entirely different.
- Lukas1994 4y ago
  Definitely agree — that’s why we have an Excel export. Importing is much harder so we haven’t worked much on that.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    I seriously don't recommend this as a solution for production, but Access is quite capable to suck data out of Excel and squeezing it back into a database. It is horrible but I am still used to businesses doing electronic data interchange through a text file on FTP servers so my standards are low.
- cyanydeez 4y ago
  Basically what one needs is a db that treats excel as a basic unit of computing.
  - formercoder 4y ago
    Except the xlsx has to be human friendly
  - greggsy 4y ago
    PowerQuery is actually pretty capable, but it’s effectively a modern plug-in bolted into Excel. They’ve kind of left Excel behind.

sinenomine 4y ago

To be honest, apps of this kind seem not entirely too difficult to clone as an opensource project. Could you name the exact killer features you see in this one, compared to, say, etherpad or https://pad.envs.net https://pad.envs.net ?

phpnode 4y ago
this is definitely not true - there's a huge depth of complexity in these multi-dimensional databases. It's relatively easy to make a proof of concept - it's "just" an array of arrays after all, but building something production quality is a multi-year endeavour

zamadatix 4y ago

Excel added lambdas recently which is nice for defining custom functions without having to expect anything special on the client side (well, other than a newer copy of Excel at the moment).

yold__ 4y ago
Conceptually, I agree that it's cool, but oh man are there going to be some indecipherable formulas showing up in spreadsheets once the power users start using it.

einpoklum 4y ago

Talk to the LibreOffice people. You might even be able to sponsor work on the feature(s) you're interested in.

greggsy 4y ago
Excel is ubiquitous in almost every workplaces, so I can use the same workflows and templates, and don’t have to raise a request to install some new app, or permission to load client data in a cloud service operated somewhere. LibreOffice is so, so far behind the curve already, and I’d be laughed out of the building.
- einpoklum 4y ago
  > Excel is ubiquitous in almost every workplaces Only in workplaces which use Windows. But granted, that's the large majority of them. > so I can use the same workflows and templates LibreOffice Calc opens Excel files well enough. > and don’t have to raise a request to install some new app It's not "some" new app. It has an estimated 200 Million users worldwide, and is probably the most popular FOSS application after browsers.
  - greggsy 4y ago
    Most Apple-centric enterprise workplaces use Office. With the exception of some features that are specific to O365-specific licenses, it has feature parity with the Windows version. LivreOffice does not do PowerQuery, and while it ‘opens Excel files well enough’, it probably only has 70% feature parity at most. They themselves claim that it has ‘tens of millions of users’… I’m not saying it’s a bad - or new - product. It’s just yet another customer requesting to install something. Very, very few (exactly zero) workplaces I have visited in Oceania and South East Asia are using it.

amelius 4y ago

They should really add the concept of array. Now you have to type "B2:B11" to refer to a range of cells, but why not "B2", and let the ":B11" part be implicit from the structure of the sheet?

andrewmcwatters 4y ago
Google Sheets has this, Excel doesn't?
- zamadatix 4y ago
  I hadn't seen this before but when I went to try I couldn't get it to work in Google sheets, am I using the wrong syntax? Typing "=SUM(A1)" just gave me the sum of A1 not A1 through the rest of the data in the column while similarly "=SUM(A1:)" resulted in an error. "=SUM(A1:A)" gives me the whole column as expected, not stopping when the data breaks after A11.
  - Closi 4y ago
    This is the correct behaviour, =SUM(A1) should give you A1 in both Excel and Google Sheets. You are passing in a single cell into SUM, so only asking it to add that cell up (not the cells below). You must refer to a range of cells for it to work - in Excel this would be for instance =SUM(A:A). In Google Sheets: generally you write a formula and hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter which will turn it into an array formula. In Excel there are many more options in how to handle this, one of which is to define a table in Excel (Insert -> Table) and then refer to the table and column (=TableName[Column]).
- Closi 4y ago
  It does - and you can do it multiple ways. The obvious way to do it is as follows: * Setup an excel sheet with "Name" and "Age" in A1 and B1, then put some sample data in. * Highlight the data and go insert -> table and hit 'ok' * Where it says Table Name: put in "Users" If we want to refer to the array of names in that table, you would now say =Users[Name] in a formula. As another example, if we wanted to find the average age, we could simply say =Average(Users[Age]) passing in the ages as an array. If we made another two columns - MathsScore and EnglishScore, we can either automatically create a column adding these up ([@MathsScore]+[@EnglishScore]), or alternatively these ranges can then be used in spill formulas.