Layer — A New Tool for Spreadsheet Management
Spreadsheets… Everyone loves them right? Well, loves them until we run into something we need from them they weren’t built to solve for; then they become a mess. Layer is a product company out of Germany that intends to solve one of these issues: Teamwork. This includes tasks like report reviewing, assigning change requests, discussing specific sections of a report and tracking change history of reports. All this and more is possible in the new spreadsheet management product, Layer.
Now while teamwork and workflow are elements Microsoft and Google have both been working to improve over the years, Layer provides a system for managing workflows from a single application across multiple spreadsheets. For example, Microsoft has added the ability to mention users and add comment threads in Excel, versioned reports in one drive and even per user views of reports, but this doesn’t fully tie all the spreadsheets in an organization into a singular workflow. But with Layer this becomes a lot more tangible.
In this article we will briefly review the product and provide some thoughts along the way.
Excel And Google Sheets
Right now, Layer is free to try out. When you get inside the app you see your spreadsheets in a list. Spreadsheets are imported or connected to Layer unlike some other tools that take a Excel\Sheets addin approach (however Layer now also has a new Office Addin for Excel). But it is nice that both Excel and Google Sheets can be imported.
Sharing Data
The next step is to create a flow with a spreadsheet by opening it in Layer and then selecting a data range. On the right of the interface there is the ability to share ranges, the current tab or the entire sheet. After the ranges are chosen the next tab asks for emails of collaborators to share with.
When they login they will find the shared report and be able to view\edit the data (unless its an excel file, then it must be edited in Excel I believe). A really cool aspect of Layer’s sharing is that it is down to cell level so users who have not been granted access to regions of spreadsheets will only see what they’ve been shared. This can also simplify review for end users who may not want to sift through reports with lots of tabs.
History
Layer also tracks change history on report flows and allows you to go back to older versions which is nice to have. In addition to history flows also have activity which is kinda like another history except with details about conversation as well, not specifically report flow versions.
Tasks
Aside from flows for reviews, tasks can be assigned to other team members with access to reports which allows for a quick way to track issues and needed changes. At some point a task integration with Jira, Clickup or other project management would be extremely useful.
Support for Charts
Reading through the Layer blog abit, it also seems that support for charts inside the Layer app is also a relatively new feature which makes reports in Layer just a bit more seamless with reports in Excel \ Google Sheets.
Excel Addin
As mentioned above, Layer also has a Office Addin for Excel and can make working in the Microsoft world just abit more integrated for some teams.
Conclusion
Overall Layer is an interesting product helping solve teamwork problems related to spreadsheets. I think this will be an interesting one to watch and could really help improve efficiency for teams who use spreadsheets regularly, across a larger number of users and have many reports floating around. Spreadsheet sprawl has thus far been a virus without a vaccine in the 21st century, but maybe Layer will change that.
