XLHub = Excel on Steriods
The I’ve recently had an opportunity to download and play with XLHub, an Excel integration plug-in developed by Metric-X. XLHub solves some of the limitations inherent in Excel that anyone who spends a lot of time with that program has experienced, particular in multi-user scenarios.
The problem:
Multiple iterations of the same financial forecast spreadsheet are flying back and forth by email. Multiple people across geographies and departments have responsibility for managing and updating certain data points in the forecast, however, much of that data for a specific department and region is embedded in other spreadsheets that roll-up more granular data.
How do you maintain data integrity and version control? How do you share data back and forth across different spreadsheets? For most companies, this is done through a “cut and paste” exercise to roll-up the data, funneled through a top-down hierarchical structure to maintain data integrity and version control, and which is emailed back and forth to all the participating parties.
Excel is a great application, but it has inherent limitations. Data is locked within cells and spreadsheets, and is not easy to share. Modifications can be done only by one editor at a time, and sharing spreadsheets among users requires a lot of back and forth emails, cutting and pasting, and file proliferation.
The Solution:
XLhub is a database solution for Excel that enables businesses to store data from Excel spreadsheets into a relational database. For companies that have an existing database solution, Metric-X offers integration services, for smaller organizations, Metric-X provides a hosted solution.
By extracting and storing data in a relational database, XLHub unlocks the data silos inherent in Excel, making information available for other applications. Updating and sharing data between multiple users in real time and among different spreadsheets is a snap, with better data integrity and no cutting and pasting. XLHub also provides centralized version control and audit trails for increased compliance.
Installation of XLHub (the demo, hosted version) was quick and painless. After using XLHub, I’ve found it to be an indispensable add-on for managing and sharing data.
Metric-X has some good video demos of the product in action on their website. You can download a free 30-day evaluation copy that includes free training and support during the evaluation period.
