Do you use a spreadsheet to create a simple and individual view of your data? In order to do just that, you should ask yourself these 5 questions so that no misunderstandings arise.
As simple as you can make a spreadsheet, the more data is added by stakeholders without thought, the more complicated the management process can become. Time and effort are unnecessarily invested in tidying up this difficult-to-navigate construct.
To make your next project with SeaTable as effective as you want it to be, ask yourself these 5 questions:
1. what information should be collected?
Before you dive into your spreadsheet, you should ask yourself: What kind of information or data is relevant to your project? Are you the only person entering this data? Then maintaining a uniform structure is easy. If, on the other hand, several people are working with the spreadsheet, it becomes more complicated to maintain a uniform structure, format and organise data. Imagine that each of your employees enters a different abbreviation for their list of company travel. New York City alone has 5 common abbreviations (New York, NYC, NY, Big Apple, BA).
Thus a Simple grouping of business trips and their costs become unnecessarily complex. With SeaTable you can easily format the cells for data entry by a column type and visualise them using the statistics function. Thus, misunderstandings and unnecessarily spent working time are no longer part of your problems.
2. who needs access to which spreadsheet?
Surely they have already heard the sentence too often from their colleagues: "Have you received the latest version yet?". One of the biggest problems in project work is the communication of new developments and agreements. To ensure that all work processes really go hand in hand, all relevant employees should be given access and a corresponding authorisation for the respective spreadsheet.
Through the column types creator and last editor, the originator of the respective row can be automatically traced. In addition, the person who last edited this row can easily be contacted.
Changes can also be tracked using the row details, which appear by pressing the space bar when a cell is selected. The same window also has a comment function where one can exchange questions or comments.
3. does the data need to be continuously adapted and organised?
Within a project, it is essential to keep track of upcoming tasks and their deadlines. It is even better to be able to see the status of an employee's task. When formatting the column types, make sure to select the correct column type to ensure unproblematic changes.
With appropriate formatting of the column type "Date", the deadline of a task can be set simply by selecting a calendar day. In connection with the Calendar plug-in, a functional overview of the deadlines can be called up.
4. how do I keep track of all the developments of the many spreadsheets?
Now you have already visualised some work processes within different SeaTables. But if you now ask yourself how you are supposed to keep track of the developments within the tables, SeaTable provides you with the answer through the function Versions function within the spreadsheet.
There you can track all changes within the spreadsheet chronologically by means of logs. In addition, so-called snapshots are available, which are created automatically in the event of major changes to the spreadsheet. These are similar to an archive in that you can access older versions of the spreadsheet.
5. is there already a template that suits my needs?
Spreadsheets are becoming more and more popular in companies, as complex data can be quickly visualised in a table. This saves time, which can be spent on more important tasks.
To save even more time, you can use one of our many ready-made templates. You can choose different templates from project management as an example for event planning. Or you can be inspired by the campaign planning for your marketing.
Now nothing stands in the way of your spreadsheet!
Now, after the 5 questions, you will be able to effectively design your spreadsheet without any future annoying problems. Start right away and try it out for free.
Do you want to get in touch with other users or have you created an effective template yourself? Visit our community forum!