For those who have been
thinking about -“my data is not clean” there is good news. We are working towards adding more tolerance in
the system.
From now onwards, a single
column of data does not have to be in text or numbers format for CollateBox
to get you started. You could bring in a combination of things inside
CollateBox via a simple copy and paste. We know how your shared users would
have added data in a column and so, collateBox takes a more open approach to data and
helps you to move forward to the next step.
Though we might only allow
you to see your data as numbers or text inside CollateBox, you will soon have
the flexibility to change the data types as per your needs or merge/split and
bring in a bit more structure. We think this is only the beginning to many
interesting ways to start working with not so clean data.
We would like to know your
thoughts on the subject and what are those things you especially need and miss
today. Drop us a line and tell us what you think...
There is a gap between what customers hope & what they
get. And, this gap can define satisfaction levels of your customers. While
firms & marketers try to sell hard on first one (What customers hope), they
disregard second one (What customers get); this leads to dissatisfaction.
P.S.: Selling yourself short on second one over first one can give you an edge,
positive or negative, manner is time bounded.
The reason for us to write this is, to give our customers a
bird’s eye view of what CollateBox offers, so that we don’t overhype
and make false promises.
CollateBox allows you to collaborate on lists without creating and
e-mailing copies. It significantly reduces bytes of storage, effort, cost and
time.
We have spoken a lot about the core product, now let me just share
with you some augmented benefits.
Attach
files, images, and comments on every record- Your team members get to open and view
the files and even add comments for others to discuss
Data collection using cool online forms- You can click & generate
white-labeled online forms and share it with your customers, partners and
employees instantly
Track changes
made on the data- See WHO
changed your data, WHEN did the change occur and WHAT data was changed in your
existing data
Data summary and visualization - painful to create pivots and write
complex macros to analyze data? Work your way out with just a click
There is more which is not mentioned here, all up to you to
figure it out.
Now if we go back to where we started, I will say this is
what we give to our customers.
You have all heard WYSIWYG "what
you see is what you get", but CollateBox has tweaked this to WYGIWYS “what you get is what you’ve
seen”. Picked it from DEMO Conference
last year where we launched.
Human
evolution has taken giant leaps, and to a large extent we are thankful to
technology. We owe a lot to it, don’t we? In simple words, technology has made
life easy. Meanwhile, it has developed irreverence and impiety within us.
The jargon
“Respect your competitors” has a profound value to it, and what we would like
to add to it is “Appreciate their work and contributions in the past &
present”.
Let me walk
you through a journey of our ancestors.
The Spreadsheet Evolution!
The word
"spreadsheet" came from "spread" in its sense of a
newspaper or magazine item that covers two facing pages, extending across the
center fold and treating the two pages as one large one. The compound word
"spread-sheet" came to mean the format used to present book-keeping
ledgers.
It all
started like this:
VisiCalc
Brainchild
of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston. Developed for Apple II in 1979 and later for IBM PC in 1981. In initial two years it
turned the tables around for
Apple from being a hobbyist's toy to a useful tool
for business. Apple owes a lot to them.
VisiCalc was
the first spreadsheet that combined all essential features of modern
spreadsheet applications, such as WYSIWYG interactive user interface,
automatic recalculation, status and formula lines, range copying with relative
and absolute references, formula building by selecting referenced cells.
Lotus 1-2-3
This killer
application was by Lotus Software (which is a part of IBM now). Lotus 1-2-3
drove sales of the PC due to the improvements in speed and graphics compared to
VisiCalc on the Apple II.
Released in
1983, it displaced VisiCalc the very same year, and for a number of years was
the leading spreadsheet for DOS.
Multiplan
Microsoft came up with Multiplan in 1982, as a competitor to VisiCalc.
Despite the release of Microsoft Chart, graphics companion software,
Multiplan continued to be outsold by Lotus 1-2-3.
AppleWorks
In the meanwhile Apple worked hard for getting its market share,
AppleWorks was one of the first integrated office suite for personal
computers, featuring a word processor, spreadsheet, and database merged into a
single program. It was written by Rupert Lissner and released in 1984.
Microsoft Excel
Later, Microsoft developed Excel on the Macintosh platform for several years, and
then ported it to Windows 2.0. The Windows 3.x platforms of the early 1990s
made it possible for Excel to take market share from Lotus.
Web based spreadsheets
Thanks to web technologies like Ajax circa 2005, a new generation
of online
spreadsheets has emerged. Some even have strong
multi-user collaboration features and / or offer real time updates.
Some
legendary players in this list
Google Docs
Office Web
Apps
Zoho Office
Suite
And,
CollateBox is very proud to join the league.
Respect and
honor to all who have contributed in spreadsheet evolution!!
Disclaimer:
Data collated from Wikipedia. You can also add information (as a comment) about
the firms whose mention has not been done on the post.
I
must say the entire world is not so delighted with the way tools such as MS
Excel or Google Docs function.
This
isn’t something which we are shouting. There is a whole community of users which
is hit by this storm. Today, let’s take you through one such small community,
which is on Twitter.
Let me share some of the
tweets:
*This number is increasing each day
It’s not just about
Google Docs there are a series of tweets about MS Excel. Have a look,
Some have issues with data validation.
This
one’s a major underlying pain for many, at least small businesses.
There are some, who
really ain’t that happy
with both Excel and Google Docs,
*We can seriously understand your pain on this one
Maaaaaaaaan!!
This one might just blow you away & yes completely.
Barclays
excel spreadsheet error was a costly affair. Not just for Lehman brothers, but,
it did have a major impact on the recession. Click here to read more
Well,
CollateBox can turn tables around for most of you. With CollateBox, you won’t
have issues like making graphs, having multiple windows, data validation etc.
I
must say this, though we aren’t feature rich as MS Excel, Google Docs (sooner or later we’ll be there :-)) but we can solve your collation,
sharing & collaboration needs way better than others.
Here,
I say it again.
Night is darkest before
the dawn and I promise the dawn is coming!
Have you ever tried sharing
portion of data with team members? Let me clear things.
I have a sheet with 100 records,
gotta share first 40 records with a team member sitting in Bristol, next 30
records with cute Asian lady, another 20 records with a workaholic team member
from SF & the last set of 10 with my newly recruited sales guy at New York.
How do I do it??
MS Ecxel? Naaaaaaa. Can some1 decide on one of the tools from the
big list (Share-a-Point, SkyAdrive)? And, yeah Cost is also a criteria, in fact a
big one.
Gooble Doxx? I am sure they are
still defining their own rules for Collaboration.
BTW, is there a way where I can hide data from Mr. Workaholic given that he has
access to edit? No I guess.
Darn, what do I do if Mr. New Recruit doesn’t have a GeMail id??
No wonder some call them evil.
I am the owner of the list of 100
records, I’ll apply filters & create separate views n save them for my
“Fantastic 4”.
100 records of ALL DATA, “Bristol
View” of 40 records, “Cute Asian View” of 30 records, “Workaholic SF View” of 20
records, “New Recruit NY View” of 10 records by applying a filter.
Now, it’s simple. Just share each
view with each one separately (not necessarily a GeMail id).
I get to sit with my coffee &
enjoy looking at my data getting collated, organized n managed with authority.
And yeah, it’s a validated one!
This
topic has been picking our attention. Hence this short post. Please feel
free to add your comments and ask for more.
Dropbox is an online application that lets you store and sync your
photos, docs, spreadsheets and videos from anywhere using any device
(computers, phones and your Dropbox website). It is not a collaboration
tool that lets you automatically organize, work or share data for
others. You can share files and folders with specific users in Drop Box,
but if more than one user opens the file it will create conflicted copies.
CollateBox on the other hand lets you bring your growing tables of data or
spreadsheets online and share parts of it with others users. You can share
partial information from a spreadsheet that pertains to
a specific user or a group and work on it simultaneously. CollateBox
automatically keeps your master data list updated on a real time basis
without having to cut and paste from multiple spreadsheets and also lets
you organize and act on this data in many different ways.
And ooh... we also allow attaching, files, documents and images on every record of your box of data.
Spreadsheet in CollateBox is different from Dropbox
To keep this simple: Drop Box allows you to store and keep your
spreadsheets in sync as files whereas, CollateBox lets you
organize, share and act on columns, rows and cells of your lists of data along with files and images with others.
NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. COLLATEBOX INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
The time has come. Today we formally begin to open CollateBox!
The name is CollateBox In most cases the name of the
business holds very little significance to the problem that your product is
solving. Yet, we thought of keeping some resemblance with our goals, hence
CollateBox. Gathering and organizing data from multiple users in the easiest possible
way is how it all started…
The schedule Over the next few weeks we’ll
be inviting users, revealing screenshots, descriptions, pricing, used cases,
videos, design decisions, and more. Then we’ll launch. We’ve been using CollateBox
internally for the past couple of months and excited to let you use it too. It
does little today – but saves you from spending lots of your time when it comes
to collecting, sharing and organizing your tables of growing data.
So what is CollateBox? The simplest way to
organize, share and act on parts of your growing lists of data online without
creating and emailing multiple copies. You should be pleasantly surprised with
a few other twists that the product offers :-)
CollateBox - Curtain Raiser
Why did we build it? We collaborate on data with
lots of people (internally or externally) for different projects. Be it
recruitment, marketing campaign, sales projections, SEO keyword tracking, development
task, customer complaint management, etc. Keeping track of these growing tables
of datausing spreadsheets was a nightmare. Scouting mailboxes to find the
latest spreadsheet version to act upon was only the beginning. To get more
value, we had to do more! Think about collecting validated data from team
members or simply the ability to hide a few columns and share data lists with others.
Nothing seemed to work when it came to keeping our own records updated when
needed. So we decided to build a shared online app where we could copy/paste our
own lists of data and share limited views for others to work. Getting
CollateBox to gather, share and automatically collate all valid changes back to
“all data” view has been a rewarding effort for us, and a great way to save
time and money for all those who were locked inside spreadsheets.
Job scenarios CollateBox was built to
accomplish common tasks, such as:
Easy way to gather and access your growing tables of data online
from anywhere
Collaborate on data with other members without making different
copies
Sort, filter, group relevant parts of your data as views for others to
update
Build expressions and relationships to derive higher value from data
Stay updated on activities and changes on your data lists via email
and SMS alerts
Automatically create online form templates for collecting prospects or inventory
details
Easily change columns of data from anywhere so that the entire team
stays updated
Organize large data as different datasets for reports and views
for future reference
Visualize data in maps, graphs and charts online and share views
with others
Export updated views of your data into Excel anytime
Do more with your data without any significant efforts or
learning
Millions of business managers and citizen developers around
the world continue living with the most basic challenge of organizing & collaborating
on parts of their spreadsheet data with others without copying, saving or
emailing multiple sheets. Think about your Delivery List, Prospect list or List
of Open Invoices. If you want to organize, act, share and work with parts of
such data lists with other team members with lesser efforts and better control,
you are left with no choice today. That’s why CollateBox matters.
Stay tuned for more. If you want to be notified when we launch and also get a
trial account, please register your email address and sign-up for an account.
Doing simple work allocation using spreadsheets is still a myth. The simple reason being “spreadsheets do not allow dynamic work allocation”. Unless you are a programming geek, you cannot share just a part of the spreadsheet data to specific agents, while hiding specific columns. It requires a huge pain of copying, saving and emailing parts of your spreadsheet every day, day after day…
But that’s not all!
You have to manually allocate work to multiple sales or service agents and then sit back and collate all the feedback and solved/unsolved requests into your MASTER sheet. Here I am referring to a used case for any sales or service center.
The alternate option for working would be Google Docs, that may allow you to share your spreadsheet online but how do you hide a column from someone who has the access to edit? Anyone can just unhide the column and see all the data along with your tiny internal notes.
Well, at CollateBox we are making all this happen.
Let me know if there is any other way you can allocate work using a spreadsheet where your data is magically shared with others while you still manage a single copy. Meanwhile register for an early beta access from CollateBox and find out yourself how well you can get your spreadsheet on steroids.
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...?
While Google Docs also offer online collaboration to all its Gmail users for free, Microsoft charges $6 for Office 365. Any idea why? Sandwiched between these providers, customers are still looking for a single solution for online data collaboration. By that I am referring to a tool that lets me get going with online project management, inventory, customer and employee data management, or just a movie database to manage. I am assuming learning so many different tools requires a whole lot of efforts and managing data become a lot more complex for light business users.
Too many tools for one single job
What do you think? Can a single tool solve the issues of data collection, sharing and online collaboration in one or two simple clicks? Eager to get some perspectives here…
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