FullCircle SmartSheets

Your spreadsheet solution for corporate data

We like keeping data in spreadsheets; it lets us analyze data with filtering, sorting and graphing and we can save the data as it was at a given point in time. It’s also a handy way to carry data around on a mobile device where it can be consulted, appended or updated. But companies want that data to be centrally managed to ensure it is available wherever the business needs it.

FullCircle SmartSheets lets IT administrators define which fields, tables and databases can be exported to a spreadsheet. Users can then download spreadsheets from the FullCircle SmartSheets web service; they run a query to select the data and then download an Excel spreadsheet that lets them view, modify and add data. An upload to the web service will translate the data into database updates or inserts, which may go into a staging table if required.

Take it on the road

Here is a simple yet powerful solution for mobilizing your data: put a SmartSheet on your laptop next time you go on the road. Access the data, modify it and even add records; when you are back in the office, an upload will synchronize the database.

Data sanitation and batch modification

Even the best designed applications and databases will have incorrect or duplicate data when they have been running a real-world workload. Spreadsheets have the statistical, mathematical and logical functions to help you find incorrect data, for example by finding outliers, showing the data on a graph or filtering on negative numbers.

You could probably have a programmer write data cleanup procedures, but wouldn't it be easier to use a spreadsheet to find the incorrect data, correct the obvious errors in the spreadsheet or flag the record as suspicious, then upload the spreadsheet back into the database?

Batch modifications are also made easier with SmartSheets; selecting records and then applying a function to their data requires only modest spreadsheet skills.

Business Intelligence

Business users have long embraced the charting and filtering capabilities in spreadsheets to understand large sets of data and to look at data from different angles.  SmartSheets opens up all corporate data stores for business intelligence without having to standardize on database technology or transform the data.