Ask HN: How do you use Google Spreadsheets?

#1

Post by ktamura » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 12:30 AM UTC

My team at work has been increasing relying on Google Spreadsheets to keep track of data. For example, our internal KPI dashboard runs on top of Google Sheets. I've largely ported my Excel models to Google Sheets so that it can be easily shared (we don't subscribe to Office 365, and even then, the collaboration experience is way better on Google Sheets)

For lack of a better term, I feel that Google Sheets has become a "data warehouse" for our business folks. Does this experience mirror yours?

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Google Spreadsheets?

#2

Post by rahimnathwani » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 5:38 AM UTC

labnol.org has great articles about doing cool things with Google Sheets, e.g. logging/alerting web site up time, mail merges, monitoring changes to web sites.

I really like the sharing functionality, and would hate to go back to the days of emailing around multiple versions of a spreadsheet.

The ability to pull in arbitrary stuff from the web (using IMPORTXML()) and easy access to exchange rates and stock prices (using GOOGLEFINANCE()) are great.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Google Spreadsheets?

#3

Post by strick » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

Saw this recently: https://medium.com/why-not/how-we-re-doing-stats-at-howdy-29...

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Google Spreadsheets?

#4

Post by ktamura » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 7:22 PM UTC

strick wrote: post #3

Saw this recently: https://medium.com/why-not/how-we-re-doing-stats-at-howdy-29...

Thanks, this is really helpful!

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Google Spreadsheets?

#5

Post by tedmiston » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 2:52 AM UTC

This is cool. Do you update your sheets for the dashboard via an API?

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Google Spreadsheets?

#6

Post by zerocrat » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 12:41 AM UTC

My experience with Google spreadsheets in a business environment setting is that it served to compensate what is missing in our logistics software.

It seems to be a go to tool for quick fixes, implemented without high level planning. Although I do not know for certain, it is apparent that most formulas and templates on google spreadsheets were created by low-mid employee initiatives.

In other words, employee Z is fed up of X feature lacking in our logistics software and would create a template to address this.

The problem is all the data is segregated and not assembled under one point of view. However, the google search function reduces this weakness significantly.

From my personal point of view, our organization loved it.

Organization profile: Large business,~500-1000 employees

To answer your question, yes it had become a data warehouse, only on niche data segments, that were not addressed in our main tool.