CollateBox Blog

Feel paralysed when it comes to managing your product price lists?

Have you ever managed a product price list for different regions or countries? I have; as a product manager for several years. It's horrible. Why?

Mostly because of how we have to work with lists today!

We cannot collaborate on region specific data unless we filter the data on region basis and save it as different sheets or files all together in Notepad, Excel or Google Docs. That’s not all - you have to work & update those multiple copies of price lists yourself if you are selling in multiple regions. It is next to impossible to get the information collated in a single master price list automatically.

To add to this don’t forget that sharing those files/sheets in Notepad & Excel in desktop mode is out of question simply because you really cannot share data in Excel without emailing the sheet multiple times and Google Docs does not offer a cell level share & collaboration capability for your price master sheet. Something these guys never thought about.

Collaborate with your team members

Look - all we need is a basic app level capability of finite share here. We have price data in rows and columns and the need is to share specific data items with specific users for them to (a) view (b) edit and (c) trigger work allocation based upon certain conditions.

 

Consider this scenario: Your product is marketed in US, China and UK and the VAT rates and prices of your product differ on a quarterly basis. You want to have a single master list and create partial data views from this list as shared views with specific users. Once they change their data, your master sheet or master list automatically gets updated. Vice versa, when you change they have their shared view automatically changed.

Isn’t it simple? Now if the guy from China adds a sudden spike in VAT rates in his shared view, would you like to setup an email notification to the country head and CFO? I would want to for sure. Isn't this scenario typical for working and collaborating on most lists today?

Well, good news is that we are making all this happen @ CollateBox.

I am, as always, interested to know how you achieve these today. What tools and possibly, which simple ways can I manage my price lists today...?

 

Best,

 

Sunny Ghosh
Founder, CollateBox

Proactive monitoring and automatic email notifications or mobile alerts on changes to Excel data

Excel is a great business tool that provides a wide range of options for the management, analysis and display of data. Under the surface, it is much more than an application program. It provides a programming language that enables us to control any aspect of the program and helps us create custom solutions for data manipulation and analysis.

Businesses today use Excel for updating their sales data, lead management, employee attendance, inventory management, budgeting, etc. and share data online via emails. All this is done in collaboration with team members and sometime with clients or vendors. However with growth in team size it becomes very difficult to keep track of any changes on the data. That is when the skills of programmers creep in and help configure various macros and code VBA scripts to help monitor and manage such huge data changes.

Advantage of using macros and VBA programming in Excel

1. Saves Time – A simple macro can help repetitive formula writing for a complex function which can be used in multiple cells of a spreadsheet
2. Minimizes Errors – A small line of code can help reduce a lot of typographical errors in functions spread across the spreadsheet and can be re-used wherever required
3. Enforces data processing standards – VBA codes and macros can help in standardization of data and enforces uniformity in all data types and processing
4. Integration – VBA programs can be used to integrate an Excel sheet with third-party applications like CRMs, HRM tools, complex data analysis software, etc. thereby making more sense out of data
5. Email Notifications and Alerts – A macro or a VBA code can help you get a mobile alerts or an email notification for any changes in data or for a particular threshold you have configured

Some of the common issues with programming in spreadsheets

1. Need VBA programming skills – Since most of the users of spreadsheets are common business people, the skills of a VBA programmer are not so commonly available and requires an external help from someone qualified to do that
2. High learning curve – It requires a lot of time and effort for a general use to learn the skills of VBA if someone wants to do it themselves which leads to higher learning curve
3. Not relevant to light users – Most of the users of Excel are light users and they do not want to implement macros and VBAs in their spreadsheets and complicate things
4. Increases complexity and costs – There are times when a macro can crash leading to a dysfunctional spreadsheet which then requires thorough de-bugging and a programmer, increasing complexity, disorder and cost.

 

Proactive monitoring with mobile alerts and email notifications

The CollateBox alternative to programming

CollateBox helps you configure powerful notifications on spreadsheet data changes without writing a single line of macro or VBA program. It helps you to improve productivity by enabling proactive monitoring and automatic email notifications on changes to Excel data. You can setup mobile alerts for sales updates by field sales agents or keep track of your inventory when stock of goods fall below a certain level.

Overall, CollateBox lets you stay on top of your data and keeps you informed about every activity happening on and around your data.

 

- Santa 

Setup powerful email notifications on spreadsheet data changes without VBA programming

 

- Santa