Excel Sheet view (Beta)
An Excel-like workbook grid over your table's data, with chosen columns marked fillable. For people who want the Excel feel while typing, and for layouts that have to look like a spreadsheet report.
What it is
+ View → Excel Sheet (marked Beta in the menu) embeds a workbook interface in the view area. It looks like Excel — cells, rows, columns, typing. It is still a view of the table: the data comes from the table and goes back to the table.
Configuring it
In edit mode the right-hand panel has Fillable Fields: tick the columns people are allowed to type into. Everything else is displayed read-only, which keeps computed values from being overwritten by accident — formula columns in particular belong on the read-only side.
An Excel Sheet embedded on a dashboard is read-only while previewing; the interface says This is a preview of the Excel report and cannot be edited. Switch to edit mode first. You can also protect a range or a whole worksheet. Before you have protected anything the panel reads You haven't protected any ranges or worksheets yet.; somebody who touches a protected range gets This range is protected and you don't have permission for that. Ask whoever created it for edit access.
What it is good for
- A group of people who only know Excel and don't want a new interface: give them an Excel Sheet to type into. The data lands in a TableDI table, and formulas and dashboards carry on from there.
- Anywhere the layout has to follow a fixed report format.
What it is not
- It is not a full Excel. Merged cells, format painter, macros and in-cell formulas are not there. Do the real calculation in the table's formula columns.
- Scrolling a large table (tens of thousands of rows) in the grid is slow; use a Worksheet view to browse detail.
Beta means the behaviour may still change between releases — don't make it the only path through a critical process yet.