7 reasons to use spreadsheets in research
17 August 2020We’ve recently got this question from one of our newer members and it lead us to this article explaining the thing. Why do we use excel spreadsheets in our research instead of some kind of external programs or custom software? Here we are with lots of reasons why we do it and why that’s a good thing. 7 reasons to use spreadsheets in research (tips and tricks on how to use our product):
It’s highly compatible with all office software & operating systems
Every operating system has at least a few of its own office software (there are multiple options for every OS) packages as well as the major office suites are optimized for most OSs as well (like Microsoft Office, which was ported to all major platforms including mobile and tablet). Excel file format is supported by any office suite out there, including the free ones. If you have any office software installed on your device, you will be able to open our files freely.
You don’t have to install or launch any third party software on your device
There are lots of cyber attacks going on every day so it’s crucial that we all don’t install any untested of not trustworthy software on our devices. Also the more software you have installed on your device the more energy in consumes in most cases and less storage you have left. With our files you don’t have to install anything besides your favorite office software.
There are also online office suits so you don’t even have to keep it on your device
You can preview and even edit table sheets online without even installing any office suites. For example, the one can export the table sheet to Google Docs, which is free and won’t damage the file a bit. The chances are that you already have a Google account, so you’re all set.
It’s very customizable with filters
This one is a little tricky since for it to work well the creator of the tablesheet should keep this thing in mind while planning it. The good news is we keep it in mind, so that totally works with our products. When you open a spreadsheet you can filter it the way you need it to be to get the exact result you want. For example, you want to see all the e-mail addresses and hide all the other contact types. That is as easy as choosing the contacts tab and only choosing the email from the list. Or you can just hide the tables you don’t want to see at the moment. You can filter by anything, for example, showing specific countries and specific type of contacts only. All it takes is just a couple of clicks or taps.
There are tons of guide videos and articles our there showing how to do it, but if you feel like you don’t have enough confidence in using spreadsheets or if you are experiencing some issues with our table, we are always here to help you as well.
It’s even more customizable with pivot tables
You can also work with huge table sheets in any way you want by creating a pivot table. This allows you creating a table based on the information we provided and gaining some useful statistics or other conclusions. For example, we have a spreadsheet with 10,000 rows of information. Let’s keep the example from above and imagine that we are talking about the contacts of some kind. By creating a pivot table you can easily sort all these contacts into categories separated by any kind of parameter you want. By making it in a minute or so you’ll be able to see how much of these contacts are based in which location or contact type or studio type or anything else. This is like a playground where you can mix the parameters in any way you like to gain the results you want and need. And we on our side do our best to optimize our spreadsheets to work great with filters and pivot tables.
It’s easy to make notes / changes
Spreadsheet is just a document, and it’s completely editable. It means that you can add as many extra rows or columns as you want to work with it. Let’s say, you want to add your own commentaries about every row of information or you want to add specific characteristics to filter out later. Not a problem – it’s available to edit in any way. We see the spreadsheet as a playground where you can do whatever you want with it to gain the results you need.
There are lots of professionals already working with spreadsheets
The chances are that you already know how to use spreadsheets since you are interested in our product. But even if that’s not the case, we can guarantee that you will find these tools and sheets really useful and will start using them in your daily work as well. It keeps the information sorted and makes it highly interactive and customizable for different requests.
So here are 7 reasons why we use spreadsheets and why we publish most of our research material in this form. However if you feel like we’re missing something, or if it’s too hard to even bother, feel free to contact us. We’ll be able to show you how to use it properly. It’s not that hard at all. Most of the features described here are just a few clicks or taps away from starting using it professionally.