Comparison of Data Organizing between Excel, Google Sheets and Modern Productivity Tools
Introduction
This article provides an overview of the differences between Excel, Google Sheets and modern productivity tools for organizing and managing data which can be projects, assets, tasks, and any structured information. Although almost all tools use a grid (array of cells) as the basic format of data presentation, they differ in the organization of the sheets, boards, or tables — views of the grid. Depending on your needs, one way or another may be more suitable for you.
Traditional Solutions
MS Excel and Google Sheets
MS Excel files are called Workbooks. Each workbook file contains multiple sheets. In a Google Drive account, one may create multiple Google Sheets files. Each Google Sheets file contains multiple sheets. For both Excel and Google Sheets files, in each sheet, there are rows and columns identified with numbers and letters, respectively. A row and column pair are used to identify the position of a cell corresponding to the row and column in the sheet.
Modern Productivity Tools/Platforms
While Excel and Google Sheets are extremely flexible and powerful and can do lots of things, people find out they are missing certain functions and do not meet their needs. In this article, there is an in-depth discussion why spreadsheets are not adequate and so many modern productivity tools have been developed to meet such needs.
One aspect of the differences between Excel and Google Sheets and modern productivity tools is the way they organize sheets/boards/tables of cell grids. Following sections summarize the approaches of organizing data of a few major productivity tools.
Airtable
Airtable uses Workspace / Bases / Tables to organize data. A “Workspace” is a collection of bases. Workspaces are usually shared among a team of people. An user account may have multiple workspaces. A “Base” belongs to a workspace. A “Base” is a database that contains one or multiple “Tables” saving all the information needed for a specific project, workflow, etc.
At the homepage after logging in, “Bases” are arranged into groups representing workspaces. A “Table” belongs to a “Base”. Each table is composed of records (rows — a list of items of the same type) and fields (columns). While all tables of one base are opened in one browser tab, different bases, when all opened, can only be opened in different tabs.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet uses a “Workspaces → Folder and Subfolders → Sheets” structure to organize data. A workspace offers more functionality than a folder because you can set up sharing permissions and branding (a logo and a color scheme) at the workspace-level. As new items are added to the workspace, they’ll automatically inherit the sharing permissions and branding applied to that workspace. Folders and subfolders are mainly for the purpose of keeping things organized such as sheets, reports, dashboards and templates.
The sheets are not shown in the menutree listing workspaces, folders and subfolders. The sheets in a folder are shown on the right side panel when its immediate parent folder is clicked/highlighted. This arrangement, in my opinion, is not helpful for users to get an overview of the data.
There is one sheet in folder “Transportation” not visible when the parent folder “Mars” is activated.
Monday.com
Monday.com has “Workspace > Folder > Subfolder > Board” structure for organizing data. Workspaces are an excellent way to separate the work of different departments or teams. The unique element “board” is basically a table, sheet, or list. Note that folders can only be nested one layer deep.
An account may have multiple workspaces, i.e., to separate the work of different departments or teams. Workspace can be toggled by selecting from the dropdown list of all created workspaces. Boards can be added directly under a loaded workspace or a folder (or subfolder) in the workspace. Workspace is sort of a big folder with a special name. Users may mark boards as “Favorite” quick access. Boards marked as Favorite will appear at the top of the workspace list opened upon clicking at the currently loaded workspace.
Clickup
Clickup has a “Workspace → Spaces → (Folder →) Lists → Tasks” structure (called Hierarchy by Clickup) for organizing data, as depicted in the following diagram.
Workspaces are at the top level and they are completely separate and do not allow any type of information transition (view, access, import, etc) from one to another.
Spaces are typically for the data for separate units but related under a big entity. They can be departments of a company, projects under a program, etc.
When a Folder containing multiple Lists is loaded:
When a List is loaded:
The details of a task show the fields in it, activities history and more:
TablDA
TablDA uses a menutree to organize four types of nodes on the menutree: local tables, links to local tables, links to tables shared by others, and links to tables shared as App by others.
Much like Windows’ File Explorer, the Menutree with folders and subfolders is the simplest yet most powerful and flexible solution for organizing many data tables. It is intuitive. There are only folders, sub-folders, and four types of nodes. No unfamiliar non-clomentaure. With menutree, users can create a folder/subfolder structure according to their custom needs based on any type of relationship defined for the datasets. Following example shows a “National” table with a “Regional” folder under which there are tables for different regions for project or program management, as shown below:
An example of multiple layers of folders:
It is worth noting that the actual relationship between data of tables is not determined by the folder structure for the tables, i.e., relative positions in the structure. The Reference Conditions (RCs) defined for the tables determine the actual data relationships of the tables. Check out the <Get Started> article “Referencing Conditions (RCs)” for more details.
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Using a menutree, you can have many tables of different uses all together systematically organized at one place. You can quickly and easily (with minimal clicks) find and load tables without switching between boards or spaces or reloading the interface.
Moreover, TablDA supports data linking between any tables, even between tables owned by others, if permission for sharing/linking is given. Check out <Get Started> article “Referencing Conditions (RCs)” for more details.
Others
Trello
Trello uses “Workspace → Boards → Lists → Cards” to organize its data. In trello, Card is
In a board, there are Lists of Cards:
The details of a card show the Description, Activity, Custom Fields (of assigned field types), and more:
Spreadsheet.com
Spreadsheet.com works the same as a traditional spreadsheet, but with a whole new set of capabilities. For organizing data, it uses a “Workspaces → folders → Workbook → Sheets” structure.
There are rows and columns in a sheet. Over 25 data types can be set for columns, including User, Attachment, Checkbox, URL, etc.
Asana
Asana is default to be a project management tool. Users start with creating a project with tasks under a Workspace (i.e., for a company or one team). So the structure for organizing data in Asana is “Workspace → Project → Tasks (View options: List or Board, etc.) → Fields”. Asana has only a few field types.
Elements of a loaded Workspace:
Similar to that of Asana task, the details of a task show the fields in it, activities history and more:
Summary
Following table summarizes the key elements of organizing the data in each of the productivity tools reviewed above.
* similar between Monday.com and Clickup.
References
- Airtable Support, Workspaces and workspace collaborators, https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042312134-Workspaces-and-workspace-collaborators
- Monday.com, How to keep your account organized, https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013626380-How-to-keep-your-account-organized
- Monday.com Support, The Basics of a Board, https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005317249-The-Basics-of-a-Board
- Monday.com Support, Putting it all together, https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016772319-Putting-it-all-together
- Smartsheet Help & Learning, Workspaces Overview, https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2026039-workspaces-overview
- Clickup F.A.Q., Hierarchy structure in ClickUp, https://docs.clickup.com/en/articles/1045623-hierarchy-structure-in-clickup
- Spreadsheet.com Using Spreadsheet.com, Introduction to Workbooks and Worksheets, https://support.spreadsheet.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029643692
- Trello Help, Moving to Workspace, https://help.trello.com/article/1263-moving-to-workspaces
