We use BI tools for dashboards, but teams often export data out of BI tools to work in spreadsheets or ask the data team for a particular slice of data. Are their best practices for when to use spreadsheets vs BI tools?
While both spreadsheets and BI tools are both used to view and analyze data, they typically serve pretty different purposes.
BI tools are best for viewing data:
- Dashboards
- Presentation of data
- Summary data and outputs
- Answering pre-determined questions
Spreadsheets are best for working with data:
- Exploring raw data
- Data wrangling and cleaning
- Ad hoc analysis
- Modeling and forecasting
- Analyzing data
Due to the limitations of Excel and Google Sheets, some teams transitioned big data analytics to BI tools that really are best suited for spreadsheets. That’s why it’s common for business users to export data from BI dashboards to open in a spreadsheet. If they actually need to work with raw data or answer yet-to-be-defined questions, the spreadsheet is better than a BI tool for that.
Row Zero is built for big data so it allows work that is better suited for spreadsheets to stay in spreadsheets. Here’s more details on how Row Zero spreadsheets compare to BI tools.