Microsoft Excel is widely regarded as one of the most powerful spreadsheet apps out there. It can be a project management program, a budgeting tool for personal finance, and for several other off-beat purposes, like tracking your workouts, making travel plans, and similar use cases you’ve never thought of. Heck, you can even play games on Excel! Despite these features, there are some areas where Microsoft’s number-crunching app needs some work.
Several competitors have caught up with Excel and have even managed to provide a few better features that improve your productivity and make your workflow smoother. Among those features, here are five of my favorite ones that I wish Microsoft would introduce in Excel at the earliest. In fact, it’s surprising to not see them on the platform already, considering how beneficial they are.
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5
Real-time collaboration with chat
From Google Sheets
I don’t generally work with spreadsheets a lot, but when I do, it’s usually for tabulating my income, expenses, investments, etc. — primarily for taxes. Since I don’t file my taxes by myself, I need to share the spreadsheet with my accountant, who does it for me. This is where I desperately wish Excel had collaborations like Google Sheets. Since the data in the sheet is dynamic and may change at regular intervals, it’s a task to send the sheet back and forth with changes.
Moreover, if my accountant has any queries regarding a certain entry, they end up calling me to ask about it. The number of calls only multiplies as and when there are more questions. If Excel allowed chats inside the app while collaborating with multiple users, it would make the workflow a lot easier than it currently is.
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4
Automation without coding
From Smartsheet
Excel has a ton of functions and formulas that unlock a whole new world of possibilities with data. Once you get the hang of how to use these functions, you can create magic with numbers. However, the biggest issue is learning to use these functions. Programmers or those with some experience in coding will find it easier to create an automation in Excel since the syntax is similar to that used in other programming languages. But, a layperson may find it rather intimidating.
I wish Excel took a similar approach to Smartsheet in this regard. What the app does is provide a simple graphical interface where you can add the input values in columns like ‘if this’ and ‘then that’. For example, let’s say you have a spreadsheet with your workplace’s attendance records. On Smartsheet, you can program an automation system that sends an employee an email with their remaining amount of paid time off every time their corresponding cell says ‘Absent’. You can also do this in Excel, but it would require a lot more technical know-how.
3
Live data import with real-time refresh
From Quip
Excel supports importing live data for creating project dashboards or even something simpler like pivot tables. You can import data from multiple sources, like other apps, databases, and online websites. However, the biggest issue is that the imported data doesn’t refresh in real time. You can set an automatic refresh period or use the manual refresh button to import new data at a certain frequency, but that’s an added step.
Platforms like Quip allow importing data that truly refreshes in real time. If you’ve imported a table via an API, the changes in the source data reflect immediately without any manual intervention. For instance, let’s say you’ve imported a price chart for a product selling at a store, and have plotted projections using it. Assuming prices of a few products fluctuate based on demand, all your projections will also change automatically in real time. It’s high time Excel gets this functionality for better precision.
2
Templates for pre-defined workflows
From Sheetgo
It’s no surprise that Excel has several built-in templates that let you do a host of different things. For instance, you can use them to create a travel planner, a calorie chart, an invoice for a client, or even an attendance sheet for a school or company. While these are helpful, they don’t really help with the core functionality of getting day-to-day work done in Excel.
That’s where the visual workflow templates on Sheetgo come in handy. The platform has predefined templates that mimic several workflows, giving a step-by-step guide to the user to carry out a certain task. Let’s say you are tasked with creating a project report with multiple streams of data. If you use the Project Report template in Sheetgo, it will guide you through the process of first importing data from all the required sources, processing it as per your needs, and then carrying out the execution of the report. Since Excel can be intimidating for new users, a feature like this can go a long way in making the platform easier to use.
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1
Natural language queries
From Google Sheets
Another feature that would certainly make using Excel simpler is the ability to ask queries in the form of natural sentences, just the way one would converse with a human. For instance, Google Sheets’ Explore feature (now deprecated) used to let you ask questions like “what is the regional split of sales?” or “which state had the maximum number of customers?” The algorithm then scans the spreadsheet and fetches the answer.
In Excel, you’ll have to use Power Query to obtain such results, and even then, you will have to give manual inputs to let Excel know where it needs to check for the data. Imagine being able to build a pie chart using a simple command instead of first creating a pivot table and then generating graphs manually. It can save a ton of time. Not sure why Google did away with it, but it’s time Microsoft adds it to Excel.
It’s time to pull up your socks, Excel
There’s no denying that Excel is still the gold standard for spreadsheets and any sort of heavy calculations or data analytics. The flexibility it provides with pivot tables, dashboards, etc., makes it the top choice for the majority of corporations around the world. However, adding these few key elements will take it up a notch and may even make it the default choice for several sectors. It may even push individuals currently using free alternatives to pay for the latest version of Office or Microsoft 365.
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source: https://www.xda-developers.com/features-i-wish-excel-would-steal-from-other-spreadsheet-programs/
