Why use Sourcetable?

Spreadsheets are one the most used applications on the planet. With over a billion users, it's no surprise that use cases are almost infinitely varied. That said, the bulk of spreadsheet use tends to be split across three spheres: project management, analysis, and as a lightweight-database. An important but less-common function sees spreadsheets used as coding platforms; an increasingly accessible and powerful trend.

If you need access to live, synced data for building models and reports, or for automating workflows, then Sourcetable was made for you. Similarly, if you're looking to access your database or SaaS data directly in a spreadsheet, without needing to know how to code, then Sourcetable is definitely for you. In both these instances, we are building a best-in-class spreadsheet that is more flexible and more powerful than alternatives, and we recommend signing up for a free trial.

If your use cases are more varied, then Sourcetable may or may not be for you, so let's dive a little deeper.

Project Management

We want to be transparent that if your sole intent is to use Sourcetable as a tool for manual planning, compilation of checklists, or collaboration on tasks ("Is this done / not done?"), Sourcetable is probably not for you. Sure, Sourcetable is a spreadsheet, and you can it us for this purpose, but you're probably already using Excel or Google Sheets which are more than up for the task. If we were in your position we wouldn't recommend switching.

If you have more advanced use cases that involve building workflows or compiling models from various data sources, there's a good chance that working with live data could be a significant upgrade to your team's productivity.

Automations are probably the most common project management use case where Sourcetable shines. We integrate with most popular applications and databases so it's easy to build reports and funnels that always-stay-up-to-date.

Examples:
* Create a live, auto-updating list of daily orders from Quickbooks or Stripe
* Maintain an up-to-date delivery status from Shippo or Shipstation
* Check to see whether customers are unique or repeat by pulling in the user table from your database
* Determine if your customer success team assisted in the sale through Zendesk or Intercom
* See if marketing played a role by checking the order email against your mailing list in Mailchimp
* And attach an NPS score from a survey you email after-the-fact using Sendgrid and Typeform.

Typically, compiling an integrated workflow like the example above would require accessing and exporting CSVs from at least 6 different services, stitching it all together through a nest of lookup statements, and then doing it all over-again just to keep things up to date (hopefully without breaking anything in the process). With Sourcetable, once you've setup your templates, they stay up-to-date forever.

Switching to live data takes some getting used to, but once you do you'll never go back.

Analysis

Data analysis is where Sourcetable shines.

Similar to other spreadsheets, Sourcetable has hundreds of formulas at your fingertips. Unlike alternatives, Sourcetable integrates natively with all of your data sources, and keeps that data synced and up-to-date. This means that when you create models in Sourcetable, you're modeling on top of the actual database tables that power your business applications. No more asking "do you have the right data?"

There are several advantages of this approach over ad-hoc, manual compilation. The most obvious of which is that Sourcetable is more stable and more reliable than CSV imports, XML feeds, and myriad plugins that can be brittle and break models without anybody realizing that there's an error. Modeling directly from the source means your can trust your analysis.

Another advantage of synced data is that models stay up to date. So whether you're modeling CAC, churn, LTV, ROAS, payback period, NPS, or any other metric, you can create your models once, and rely on Sourcetable to update them automatically. (Can you say "automated reports?")

Unsurprisingly, some people like to use Sourcetable as a lightweight Business Intelligence tool, because it's easier to setup, maintain and use than Looker, Tableau, or Mode. Sourcetable handles the data engineering, so regular business user can get setup without requiring a programmer, and users are provided an easy-to-use GUI to query data tables without having to learn SQL or code. This is a significant improvement over existing workflows, and can democratize access to data within your company.

(If you've found yourself querying in a BI tool, then dumping to CSV to analyze the data in a spreadsheet, then you will be pleasantly surprised to find Sourcetable as a fusion of the two, with everything you need in one place.)

Finally, the Sourcetable team is working to eliminate our own pet peeve – row limits – so that whatever the query, you can handle it using regular spreadsheet formulas in Sourcetable. We're putting an end to the dreaded 50k row limit for Sheets users, and even the 1m row limitation faced by Excel power-users.

Lightweight Database

We don't promote Sourcetable-as-a-database heavily in our marketing materials, but if you've read this far there's a good chance you're a data nerd like us, and will be pleased to learn that every team using Sourcetable gets a secure data warehouse out of the box.

We originally did this because it allowed us to build a more powerful spreadsheet, but over time we've learned that having a data warehouse that is accessible to non-engineers is pretty appealing to teams.

If you're looking for a place to centralize, document and collaborate on data, then you may have use cases for Sourcetable that we haven't even thought of.

Making data accessible to everyone.

Whatever you use case, our mission at Sourcetable is to make data accessible to everyone. Whether you're looking for a solution that is more powerful, more collaborative, or simply easier to use, there's a good chance you'll be delighted by Sourcetable.