For a solution category dedicated to keeping data organized and accessible, spreadsheeting software can be immensely unwieldy at times. The issue returned to the fore last week after Alphabet Inc. integrated its BigQuery business intelligence service with Google Sheets to try and make it easier for users to tap their structured records.

The addition not only makes it possible to import spreadsheets through the native interface but also export the results of an analysis in the other direction with similar ease. And perhaps most significantly, BigQuery can now automatically pick up changes in a document that it’s being used to process and account for the new data during the next access request. The feature has the potential to save a lot of manual work for a business intelligence team with a large number of spreadsheets to manage.

Qlik Inc. is looking to similarly improve user productivity with the new edition of its managed data visualization service that debuted alongside the BigQuery update last week. Qlik Sense Cloud Business brings sharing functionality that lets analysts collaborate on the creation of dashboards in a real-time much like Google Apps. The service also provides the ability to make the underlying metrics and business logic accessible to remote colleagues, who can in turn take advantage of the data for their own projects.

Qlik’s growing focus on the hosted component of its portfolio comes as organizations do more and more of their analytics in the cloud, a trend that Microsoft Corp. is trying to address too. As part of the effort, the company last week acquired an Italian startup called Solair Sri that has developed a platform-as-a-service offering for processing transmissions from the connected universe. The toolkit includes seven pre-implemented modules for handling common tasks such as collecting hardware maintenance logs and managing documentation as well as more specialized use cases like inventory tracking. 

Image via geralt