The shift to cloud data storage has been a transformative move for enterprises, promising scalability, security, and accessibility, but the journey is not without obstacles. One common and critical challenge that many organizations face post-migration is the disruption of live queries from spreadsheets—a staple in business operations. For technical decision-makers, this presents a significant hurdle.
Fortunately, Cube Cloud’s universal semantic layer not only enables but also enhances the spreadsheet experience. In this blog, learn why Cube Cloud and spreadsheets are a powerful combination to enable live queries in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
Losing Live Query Capabilities in Spreadsheets
Despite advancements in modern BI and data visualization platforms, spreadsheets remain an indispensable part of the business productivity suite. Their flexibility, ease of use, and ubiquity make them an irreplaceable tool for many users. From finance departments running complex calculations to sales teams tracking targets, spreadsheets are deeply ingrained in daily workflows in multiple lines of business.
While the migration to cloud data platforms like Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift is a strategic move towards a more modern, scalable infrastructure, an unintended consequence is the inability to live query cloud data from spreadsheets. This issue arises because traditional spreadsheet tools like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets aren’t natively designed to interact seamlessly with most cloud data platforms.
Why Cube Cloud and Spreadsheets Are Better Together
Instead of forcing users to export data manually, which is time-consuming and error-prone, there is a better way forward with Cube Cloud. It offers an enhanced solution to the spreadsheet dilemma with the universal semantic layer.
Cube Cloud seamlessly integrates with your existing cloud data infrastructure, improving your data and analytics workflows. The platform supports a wide range of data sources, BI tools, and spreadsheets, making it a versatile addition to your data stack. It’s the ideal choice for enterprises seeking to bridge the gap between their cloud data platforms and spreadsheets.
Unify Data Models and Metrics
Cube Cloud acts as an intermediary between your cloud data platform and spreadsheets. It provides a unified access point that standardizes queries and ensures consistent data definitions across all tools. This means that whether a user is working in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or a modern BI platform, they’re accessing the same, consistent data.
Centralize Governance and Security
One of the major concerns with data exports is the potential for data breaches and loss of data integrity from manual manipulations. Cube Cloud addresses this by centralizing data governance and security. With the universal semantic layer, you can enforce access controls and permissions, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive information. This mitigates the risk associated with data sprawl and unauthorized data exports.
Optimize Performance
Live querying from spreadsheets to cloud data platforms can be costly, resource-intensive, and slow if not managed properly. Cube Cloud optimizes query performance through pre-aggregation caching. This ensures that your users can run complex queries directly from their spreadsheets without experiencing significant lag or performance issues.
How Cube Cloud Enhances Spreadsheet Analytics
By integrating Cube Cloud, you can restore the ability for direct data interactions within spreadsheets. Users can refresh their data, apply filters, and run analyses on the latest information without needing to export and re-import data. This real-time capability is crucial for making informed business decisions quickly and accurately.
You can extend the benefits of the universal semantic layer by allowing anyone to connect, analyze, and reuse trusted data assets with Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets using a live connection, without exports or snapshots. This integration eliminates the need for pre-processing, ensures real-time data access, and streamlines complex data transformations, allowing analysts to focus on deriving insights and storytelling.
Modern Cloud OLAP in Microsoft Excel
The native MDX API in Cube Cloud leverages Excel’s native Analysis Services connection. It integrates the universal semantic layer with Excel so that users can perform multidimensional analysis and leverage Excel's powerful data analysis features while maintaining a connection to Cube Cloud. Now, you can leave legacy systems behind, and step into the future to support Modern Cloud OLAP.
By migrating from legacy OLAP platforms, organizations can stop supporting the older systems, providing license and maintenance savings and replacing them with more powerful, modern cloud data platforms. With the MDX API, Excel directly queries large datasets through the universal semantic layer. The MDX queries are translated into optimized SQL, processed by Cube, and the results are returned to Excel.
Perform Live Queries in Google Sheets
Cube Cloud for Sheets is a Google Sheets Add-on. It can be found in the Google Workspace Marketplace and installed via the browser, or added from Google Sheets directly from Extensions > Add-ons. Once installed, you can access a Cube Cloud sidebar. With Cube Cloud for Sheets, customers can search data assets and create pivot tables from modeled data in Cube.
Cube Cloud for Sheets integrates the universal semantic layer with Google Sheets so that users can perform live queries on governed data with Google Sheets, while maintaining a connection to Cube. With the add-on, Google Sheets can directly query and aggregate any data modeled in Cube Cloud through the universal semantic layer, opening up data access beyond BigQuery and Looker, the default connection options.
Enable Live Query Capabilities with Spreadsheets and Cube Cloud
The future of enterprise data is in the cloud, but that doesn’t mean we should leave behind the tools that have proven their worth over decades. Spreadsheets are here to stay, and with Cube Cloud’s universal semantic layer, you can ensure they remain powerful and governed tools for everyone in your organization.
By restoring live query capabilities, enhancing data governance, and optimizing performance, Cube Cloud bridges the gap between your cloud data warehouse and the familiar spreadsheet environment, empowering your teams to work smarter and more efficiently.
Embrace the best of both worlds—modern cloud infrastructure and the timeless utility of spreadsheets—with Cube Cloud. Contact sales to learn more about live queries in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.