Spreadsheets are the easiest way to store, process, analyze, and distribute data. However, they do come with one caveat - they’re not very scalable when you have to process a lot of data. 

This begs the questions - how do you automate these spreadsheet calculations, entries, uploads/downloads, and other actions without having to spend hours each every week away from the more important task? 

This article will walk you through a detailed process of how to automate spreadsheets 

Onboard spreadsheets to a database

Spreadsheets come in different formats and sizes. .csv, .tsv, and .xlsx are the most popular ones. The first step is to onboard these files to an online database so they can be logically indexed for automation later on. Check out this video on how to upload .csv files on Acho. 

Transform and map the database based on your spreadsheet schema 

After files are onboarded, it’s now time to clean and transform them into a desirable format. In order to turn the spreadsheets into a persistent database that can be used to support all the automation services, the process of designing schema, table relationships, and defining schematics is very important. 

Deploy your services based on the mapped schema 

After the tables have been mapped and transformed for automation purposes, it’s now time to deploy the “automation service”. There are several types of services you can perform such as 

  • Sending data from one system to another
  • Sending data on a scheduler based on logics 
  • Sending real-time data to “trigger” certain actions 
  • Sending “data streams” consistently on change

Monitor and control the automation 

Once a service is configured, you can now use a service control panel to monitor, observe,  manage, modify, and deploy the automation services directly on top of the business object tables already in place.  

Here's an interactive demo of how the service control panel works in connection with .csv and .xlsx files uploaded and mapped inside of the software.

After the service control panel is set up and configured, you can now automate spreadsheet operations for almost any system regardless of the calculation complexity, data size, and update logic.

Contact us in the chat box on the bottom right corner of this page if you have any questions!