Spreadsheets are employed almost universally by businesses everywhere. Whether they’re used to quickly compute complex calculations or merely to store valuable company data in one convenient location, spreadsheets are beloved by many for their functionality, ease of use, and nearly endless possibilities for usage in the workplace.
Since its release, Microsoft Excel has been the undisputed industry leader, boasting a host of features and a classic layout - but Google’s collaborative cloud-based Sheets is quickly catching up to and overtaking the legacy spreadsheet solution. Businesses looking for a faster, more collaborative experience may find that it’s time for their organization to make the jump from Excel to Sheets.
Collaboration Made Easy: Always Work on the Most Recent File Version
One of the best ways for your team to enhance workplace effectiveness and productivity is by encouraging collaboration among staff - this is one of the major areas where Google Sheets shines. Sheets allows your entire team to interact and collaborate on spreadsheets in real-time, giving your staff the ability to edit simultaneously, comment, and review projects to ensure the highest-quality end product possible.
Google Sheets also allows your team to easily communicate with each other instantly through a handy chat feature, letting your team brainstorm and comment on spreadsheets from anywhere and at anytime. Most importantly, nobody will ever be revising the wrong version of a file - they will always be working on the most current version, with edits showing up in Google Sheets’ second most powerful feature - revision history.
Google Sheets Revision History: See all Edits, and who Made Them
One of Google Sheets’ most useful features comes in the form of revision history, which allows those with access to a specific spreadsheet to see where additions are made, deleted or moved data, or which users have made revisions with detailed timestamps. This feature lets you easily track who changed what in every single spreadsheet, and gives users the ability to revert to previous versions of a project to start projects fresh or to wipe the board of any changes you're not fond with.
Revision history increases collaboration between your team, and allows for further transparency within your staff, meaning no more saving files under appended names or swapping files back and forth and potentially losing valuable data in the process.
Speed, Convenience, & Integrations
The power of Google makes Sheets a force to be reckoned with, especially when it comes to navigating and searching spreadsheets for specific data entries, integrating with other commonly used workplace platforms like CRM solutions, and seamlessly importing a wide range of files - even Excel spreadsheets.
Google Sheets features a clean, simple interface that is laid out with ease of use in mind, which allows your team to quickly and easily find and use the functions they’re looking for. Google Sheets also lets your staff accurately search for information across your entire organization, quickly import data from the Internet into your spreadsheets, and even translating the language of specific cells through Google Translate commands.
Available both on and offline, G Suite users can access Google Sheets from anywhere and on any device, letting your staff work from home or on the go without missing a beat, and giving them the freedom of device that they desire. The options for integration offered by Sheets also allows for a significant competitive advantage by letting your team quickly share information and data from Sheets into Docs, Slides, Forms, and other G Suite solutions, creating a more unified workflow that will boost employee productivity and allow for further collaboration between your staff.
Add-ons can Visualize Data Powerfully, Create Charts, and Much More
Most organizations using Excel only make regular use of the most basic spreadsheet functions, all of which are available for use in Google Sheets. For more complicated functions that Google has not yet made available in Sheets, the add-ons feature offers a wide variety of solutions and alternatives that can make your life a little easier.
Whether you need to further format spreadsheets, create reports from form data, gather data from numerous sources, or import business data into a spreadsheet, there’s an add-on for you. Google makes free add-ons extremely easy to find and install through the “Tools” menu in Sheets, making them available for use across all G Suite platforms at the click of a button.
Keep Your Data Safe and Secure in the Cloud
When you make the switch from Microsoft Excel to Google Sheets, you can be sure that all your valuable business data is safely and conveniently stored in the cloud, available only to those with the appropriate permissions to access and edit.
Google’s cloud storage gives your organization unlimited storage space for all your business data, and features like two-factor authentication and anti-phishing measures mean that your data is safe from a potentially reputation-ruining security breach. A fully-functional security portal gives your IT administrators the ability to grant and deny permissions to anybody trying to access documents, detect and thwart incoming phishing scams, and much more.
Google continues to add useful features to its already impressive cloud-based productivity suite, boosting security, integration, and features across the board and making Sheets a worthy adversary to Microsoft Excel. Making the switch from Excel to Sheets will see your business quickly improve effectiveness and productivity through the many features made available by Google, giving you and your team the ultimate spreadsheet solution for the modern age.
To find out more about how UpCurve Cloud can help your business make the switch from Microsoft Excel to Google Sheets and harness the power of G Suite, contact us today.
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