I've been using Google sheets to curate the remote jobs from many job sources. It's a really an easy database for me since I have limited database skills.
Also, Airtable for some cases and when it's relevant.
Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#42I used them to grade students, multiple teachers can edit the document at the same time and the grades are computed dynamically.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#43I've tracked my wedding-related costs with my at-the-time-fiancee-and-now-wife.
Then we've used couple times it to calculate some monthly living costs and savings.
And the last time I've used it was for keeping track of all recruitment processes I've took part of (because over a week I've applied to like hundreds companies and it was difficult then to differ which company was offering what etc.)
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#44I’ve got three files open right now. One is calculating contract rates based on hourly, weekly, and monthly contracts and various discounts. One is a list of RFPs, contacts for them, and their status. One is costing out a few options for a home office setup.
So a combination of lists and light calculations.
In the past I’ve also used them as awkward makeshift databases and leaned heavily on conditional formatting to highlight data points that required action.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#45Currently, I use Google Sheets for tracking expenses and investments. There are two files, one for tracking expenses and the other is for investments.
I track my daily expenses in a sheet. A sheet is indicated the month and the year. Once I spend the money I input the expense soon to prevent from forgetting. It's simple. A table with a category expense, detail expense, and the amount. This is something that I want to do because this habit can make me understand how I spend my money. I mean do I appreciate the money?
For investments, a sheet is indicated a category of investments. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, for example. I also use a simple table to track what I buy or sell. By the way, Google Sheets has a GOOGLEFINANCE formula [0] that is very usefull for getting the price of a stock.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#46I use it as a great way to share data from ad-hoc queries, and often times can drive a quick workflow without having to build out a full set of screens in our line of business app. On a personal level, despite many attempts to find a perfect app, my relatively simple set of budgeting spreadsheets is still the best solution I've ever come up with. Not Google Sheets, but the president of our company has been able to bu…
> using spreadsheets as a prototyping tool and letting those who understand the business hammer out the logic, before handing off to developers, is a great approach. A working spreadsheet is definitely the best requirements doc in the world
Just FYI, that approach definitely hasn't been my experience. A spreadsheet at a moment in time doesn't encapsulate users' true requirements (and they won't tell you what their real requirements are when you ask).
My story: I built a more "robust" version of the spreadsheet, with a normalized database schema, the very hottest UI framework, etc., and exactly the same logic. Some of this got pretty complex, of course: copying and pasting a bunch of cells is easy on a spreadsheet, but a hassle to build in a custom app. So it took some time.
I came back and showed the app to the users and found that the spreadsheet had actually changed quite a bit. Columns had been added for a new team, the widget approval process had sprouted some manual overrides, and more (the lack of an effective spreadsheet diff tool or change management prevented me from knowing the complete story).
I went off again, updated the app for the new process, came back to a changed spreadsheet, etc. We iterated for quite a while before the developers and the business gave up in frustration. The breaking point was when we were asked to add a calculation engine to the app so that users could add columns of cells with new formulas. (That's when I decided to leave that job and go help build a better spreadsheet).
Spreadsheets don't feel robust to developers, but business people do not feel that pain. If robustness is the main selling point of the replacement, I'd make sure that business users are screaming for robustness. I'd want dollar-signed disasters that were the result of too much flexibility.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#47I have so many Google Sheets. I track my weight, running performance, workout progress, my spendings, savings, investment performance, car expenses, all trips out of the country (for visa purpose) and more. Everything with fancy charts showing progress and how well I'm achieving my goals.
wouldn't this be easier if you could do it in an application?
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#48I use it as a great way to share data from ad-hoc queries, and often times can drive a quick workflow without having to build out a full set of screens in our line of business app. On a personal level, despite many attempts to find a perfect app, my relatively simple set of budgeting spreadsheets is still the best solution I've ever come up with. Not Google Sheets, but the president of our company has been able to bu…
there's a lot of good personal finance apps out there, mint?
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#49I use it as a great way to share data from ad-hoc queries, and often times can drive a quick workflow without having to build out a full set of screens in our line of business app. On a personal level, despite many attempts to find a perfect app, my relatively simple set of budgeting spreadsheets is still the best solution I've ever come up with. Not Google Sheets, but the president of our company has been able to bu…
there's a lot of good personal finance apps out there, mint?
Like I said, I've tried a lot of them. They're all good apps, but none seemed to fit the way I like to plan and track what's going on.
Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?
#50I use it as a great way to share data from ad-hoc queries, and often times can drive a quick workflow without having to build out a full set of screens in our line of business app. On a personal level, despite many attempts to find a perfect app, my relatively simple set of budgeting spreadsheets is still the best solution I've ever come up with. Not Google Sheets, but the president of our company has been able to bu…
I use Google Sheets to share ad-hoc queries with other people too. Fun tip for those who use Postgres: psql has a command `\copy` that allows you to write the results of a query out into a local (clientside) CSV file. From there, it's pretty straightforward to import that into a Google Sheet.
Yeah, I use Datagrip, which lets you easily copy a query's results to TSV data in the clipboard, so you can't quickly paste into Google Sheets.