Alation Brings Trusted Data to Spreadsheet Users with Alation Connected Sheets
New product empowers a wider class of business users, enabling faster, more accurate decision-making with spreadsheets.
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Alation Inc., a leader in enterprise data intelligence, has launched Alation Connected Sheets, a new product stemming from the company’s acquisition of Kloud.io. Alation Connected Sheets enables business users to pull trusted, governed, and up-to-date data from data sources into spreadsheets via the Alation Data Catalog.
Spreadsheets are foundational for business decision-making across every industry. According to IDC, there are 78 million advanced spreadsheet users worldwide. Although both static in nature and disconnected from data sources, spreadsheets remain the preferred tool for business users; however, 90% contain errors. Data within spreadsheets is often copied and pasted from one spreadsheet to another or downloaded into CSV files from untraceable data sources. Without the proper management and effective data governance of spreadsheets, organizations suffer from significant productivity losses and expose themselves to increased risk because critical business decisions are based on inaccurate and ungoverned data.
Alation Connected Sheets solves this problem by meeting business users where they are: using spreadsheets, including Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Now, business users across the enterprise can easily find, understand, and use trusted data from spreadsheets with confidence. Alation Connected Sheets increases business user productivity by enabling them to find, filter, import, and refresh data without having to learn a new tool or querying language. Alation Connected Sheets is available immediately as an add-on in Google Sheets and for Microsoft Excel in early 2023.
Key benefits of Alation Connected Sheets:
- Brings trust and governance to spreadsheets. By integrating with Alation Data Catalog, unique governance features such as TrustFlags signal if data is endorsed, warned, or deprecated, helping users import the best and most appropriate data directly from the source.
- Effortless setup, use, and maintenance. With a simple user interface and easy-to-use filters, data can be imported and automatically refreshed without relying on technical resources such as data engineers or analysts.
- Risk mitigation. By leveraging existing security credentials, only authorized users can import and use live, compliant, and trustworthy data in a spreadsheet.
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