OfficeSheet for MsExcel (OS4XL) is the first and only fully functional Smart Client for Ms Excel, and provides unique portal into MsExcel data and functionality for information-intensive work environments.
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OfficeSheet for MsExcel (OS4XL), is a desktop software application designed for use on Ms Windows and in conjunction with Ms Excel ™. OS4XL is a “Smart Client” for the Ms Excel application, and provides a unique portal into MsExcel data for information-intensive work environments.
OS4XL augments the operation and use of MsExcel and integrates it into an overall information workflow in a number of key areas:
Data Acquisition:
OS4XL provides fast and precise data acquisition from MsExcel worksheets, based on names, selected areas or explicit ranges. Acquire cell data as well as additional information such as comments, links and formats such as font (v1.1). Easily acquire and manage “metadata”, such as lists of worksheet names (v1.1), and standard and custom properties (v1.2). Conversion of data from MsExcel “lists” to a database-like table of columns and rows should be a no-brainer, but it is often non-trivial due to common data acquisition problems, such as multiple row headers and inconsistent column header naming. OS4XL provides solutions for these types of problems.
Data Management:
OS4XL provides a range of functions for operating on MsExcel worksheets in multiple units, with functions such as copy and append that are data structure aware. OS4XL enables you to open multiple files in one operation, or process an almost unlimited number of files in a series of batches.
Data Conditioning and Manipulation:
OS4XL assists you to overcome the numerous pitfalls that await the analyst who wants to integrate data from multiple spreadsheets, most of which are hand-edited. Often much of the data in a spreadsheet has been “beautified” with various formats and augmentations to make it more visibly appealing but reduce its ability to be used in any downstream automation, such as invisible columns and rows, multiple blanks columns and rows, and text comments. Before performing data integration functions (see below), many spreadsheets need to be conditioned and data edited.Data Integration and Assimilation:
OS4XL provides multiple functions to integrate data into a single structure. How often have you been in the situation where you have one spreadsheet with part of your data, another with a different and slightly overlapping set of your data, and a third that contains the rest. Perhaps you need to maintain a master reference table on something (people, projects organisations etc), but integrated together with recent status commentary and the most recent balances and or dates for key budgets and tasks. OS4XL enables you to avoid re-typing, or dangerous manual copy and pasting from one sheet to another. OS4XL enables you to analyse data frequency and perform functions based on indexed data: Lookups, Updates and Merges (v1.1).
Data Analysis & Reduction:
OS4XL provides a number of methods for data reduction and summarisation. Whilst Pivot tables have become part of many information worker’s daily lives, the data that is produced is not readily usable for other tasks other than presentation. Once you’ve created a nice pivot table and produced a subsetting of data, it is often quite difficult to put this in the pivot summary data to use in another application. OS4XL provides an intermediate form of Pivot Grid with a wrapper of data management functions that enables very rapid distillation of masses of information, and then that summary data can be immediately used in the next step of your analysis.
Data Distribution & Collaboration:
OS4XL enables you to rapidly distribute information to different correspondents, either those looking for your integrated data, or the sources of your raw data to obtain missing or invalid information. Once you have transformed, conditioned, integrated, and validated your information, you want to put it to some use. Or maybe you never got that far: you found that data was missing or invalid and needed to send back to one of your correspondents.
Data Reinsertion:
The last step of your process is more than likely to redistribute or re-use the information within the original application, in this case MsExcel ™ . OS4XL enables this to be pushed back to the worksheet.
Overall, OS4XL will maximise the value of your Ms Excel investment in information-intensive work environments.
OS4XL Functions
The functionality of OS4XL is made up of a number of Functional Views which relate to the type of data that is being worked with. Each Functional View (aka “UIViews”) tie together a specific User Interface view of the data, a set of functional menus to enable the user to operate on the data, and a set of specific subviews that give the user additional information.
The UIViews that are included with OS4XL (depending on the edition that you have licensed) are as follows:
• ListSheet View
• DataSheet View
• Ms Excel Explorer View
• Ms Excel Data Manager View
A screenshot of OS4XL is shown below, and the various views described afterwards.
ListSheet View
This view manages the information contained in Decade Nine “ListSheets” which are powerful “name-value” pair lists. These lists can be used within OS4XL to maintain lists of id’s that can be used in various functions (e.g. filter a dataset based on a list of values). Another use of lists within OS4XL is a list of files to be managed as one unit, e.g. to open a set of files in one go. These files can be stored anywhere on the local system’s disk.
The ListSheet UIView enables you to create, edit, print and distribute ListsSheets as well as perform a variety of list functions such as compare, merge etc.
DataSheet View
This view manages the information contained in Decade Nine “DataSheets” which are powerful method for managing grid-based data. These DataSheets are the primary unit of information processing in AppSheet applications, and where the majority of the data management functionality is provided.
The DataSheet UIView enables you to create, edit, print and distribute DataSheets as well as perform a variety of list functions such as compare, merge etc.
Ms Excel Explorer View
The Ms Explorer UIView is the first UIView specific to OS4XL. This UIView provides a general-purpose interface into the various interal data structures within Ms Excel, including Names, Bookmarks, Lists etc. and enables this information to be displayed in ListSheet or DataSheet format, depending on the type of data.
Ms Excel Data Manager View
The Ms Explorer UIView is the second UIView specific to OS4XL. This UIView enables you to rapidly and easily acquire gridbased data (DataSheets) from Excel worksheets, and separately to transfer gridbased data to MsExcel.
