Say Goodbye to Excel with the New built-in Odoo Spreadsheets
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Odoo Experience 2020 https://youtu.be/tCYnN1tdv5U
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Say Goodbye to Excel with the New built-in Odoo Spreadsheets
- 2. Business Intelligence should be efficient
- 3. Powerful BI means: Having total control over your data Extract · Analyze · Update
- 4. Why use spreadsheets if I have an ERP?
- 5. Spreadsheets are: Usable · Adaptable · Widely-adopted
- 6. EXPORT/IMPORT Slow · Messy · Hard to regulate
- 7. INTEGRATIONS Expensive · Not flexible · Limited
- 9. Pivot tables
- 10. Create or add the spreadsheet
- 11. Real time data
- 15. Sales trends / changes
- 16. Activity KPIs
- 17. Activity KPIs
- 18. Activity KPIs
- 19. Why doesn’t Odoo have a commissions app?
- 21. Expressions
- 23. Account Budgets
- 24. Filters
- 26. Thank You
Editor's Notes
- 0:00 - 1:15 -Hello! My name is Brett, I am the director of Sales here in San Francisco. Welcome to this talk, “Say -BEEP- to Excel with the new Spreadsheets feature.” -First off, it is not going to be a detailed tutorial of how to do everything in the spreadsheets tool, you’ll find other resources for that. My main goals here are to: 1. explain why we made the Spreadsheets feature, why we’re so excited 2. Provide some examples of how businesses might use it in Odoo -Why are we excited about this feature, why did we develop it? -Are we actually trying to replace Excel or Google sheets 100%? (no, not really) -It’s all about giving you improved Business Intelligence, as we know it today. We believe it should be very efficient. -BI is increasingly important if you want your company to succeed -It’s a big, general term that includes many processes and methods for different purposes -But the main end goal of BI is to make your business more efficient through data driven analysis of how the different parts of your company are performing. -And so similarly, the way that we USE BI tools…. that itself needs to be very efficient!
- 1:15-2:30 -To have really amazing BI functionality, it’s largely about being able to grab your data, and then analyze it, usually using formulas or calculations, and then of course have the power to update both the data and the way you analyze it over time so that it scales and doesn’t create unnecessary work for you. -When it comes to the extraction part… in other words, extracting the data out of the platform… I think it’s important to remember that ever since Fabien began Odoo as TinyERP back in the early 2000s, our platform has done an amazing job at solving a very old problem: how multiple separate softwares interact with each other. -The same applies here. Many of you familiar with Odoo’s biggest strength of built-in integration won’t need the reminder, but it’s important to point out that the world of data analytics and business intelligence is the same old story as connecting sales and accounting, or connecting an ecommerce store to a warehouse. -So we’ll focus on the traditional idea of turning the data that you have in your business software into spreadsheets for you to analyze or use.
- 2:30-3:30 -Ok so first off, I think this is something that needs to be commented on real quick because I have heard this question recently a few times: -Why use spreadsheets at all, if we have a hi-tech business solution like Odoo or another ERP for that matter? -Basically, it’s a matter of how complex businesses can be, and being practical. Businesses are unique. Even very robust and elaborate ERP platforms don’t necessarily have every single type of forecasting, or maybe they don’t compare budgets to a series of different goals and display that info the way you want them to, or they don’t have a way to calculate commission that matches how your business actually works. ‘ -Of course it’s also possible that those things do exist exactly how you need in a particular ERP, but it’s a very expensive feature and it’s not affordable to you or your customer. Or maybe it can all be developed, but it’s too expensive to develop or difficult to maintain that over time over time.
- 3:30-4:45 -But spreadsheets on the other hand, are always going to be very easy to work with, and can apply to a ton of different BI use cases. Not only are they easy to set up, but they’re usually easy to change and modify the formatting or any built-in calculations as your business processes change. Whereas, if something is developed with code living in a particular field in a software platform, it’s never going to be as quick or accessible to the user or the admin. -And sometimes it’s just the reality of adoption… significantly more business owners and users know how to work with spreadsheets than they know how to write python code. -So our goal is not to pretend that spreadsheets aren’t useful. They will always be useful, especially to small to midsize businesses and enterprises as they grow. -So assuming that we need spreadsheets to serve some purposes for our business, we’ve gotta get the data that we have to put it into spreadsheet form. And traditionally, up to this point, there are a couple ways to do that.
- 4:45-6:15 -The classic export/import approach means downloading the data as an excel file. Odoo does this very well, our export feature has always been strong in letting you have full access to your data. In addition to Excel, you can also export it to a google sheet if you prefer something in the cloud or if you don’t want to pay the microsoft license fees! -There are numerous problems though, of course. 1 The main problem is speed… this process is slow. Even if you use export templates and paste a spreadsheet into a pre-existing worksheet with formulas, with this method, you would be working harder, not smarter. And that’s the opposite of business intelligence! 2 Additionally, it is sloppy… ask anyone that has used a software this way, they always end up with a ton of exported files on their computer, usually all with basically the same name plus an integer at the end. Really not modern 3 Any manual process like this is very difficult to regulate or integrate it into your daily workflow. In my experience, if it’s not relatively quick and easy to analyze data to get the information I’m looking for, then I’m just simply not going to take the time to analyze very often. You become “data-avoidant”
- 6:15 - 7:30 -The other way, which can be more efficient, is to rely on integrations. There are tons of BI tools out there that connect and synchronize with different softwares to help you analyze your data, usually making use of a API connections, zapier, webhooks, etc. -Of course, the big problems with this approach are the same as other software integrations that we solve with Odoo. 1 It is often very expensive! BI tools are frequently high priced just for the license. 2 One of the big problems is the need for customization or changes to formulas and formats. Customization to your software that is generating the data often means you need to customize the integration also. And that can be complex or expensive, or you could break the integration. 3 It’s also limited in scope usually, maybe it works well for analyzing sales data, but does nothing for inventory for example. And whenever you need to run an analysis that compares data from different parts of your platform in one specific view, that can be challenging to develop or maintain.
- 7:30 - 8:15 -Okay, with that background and context, now, we are excited to bring you our solution to those problems. You can now have the advantages of spreadsheet functionality without worrying about any of those traditional challenges of trying to extract your data. -I am going to touch on a few different examples of how this might be used. -I will start off really simple… and again, this is not intended to be a training session, it’s more of a showcase for some of the potential ways to use this. I want to get you all thinking of how you might benefit from it, and where you might say “oh I won’t need to do this in Excel or Google Sheets anymore” or “I was planning on having something developed, but now maybe I can use Odoo spreadsheets for this...
- 8:15 - 9:45 -So, it all starts with pivot tables. All Odoo spreadsheets are fed by pivot tables in Odoo reporting. So, if you look at any pivot table in Odoo that shows you some data, that can be used in the spreadsheets tool. -As you may already know, the pivot table functionality in Odoo is already very strong. You can filter and group by any relevant field in a model to get detailed tables of the info you want to see. You can put whatever you want on the X axis, anything you want in the Y axis, and drill further to get more detailed and structured. And, you can decide what specifically the measures are that you’re paying attention to. It’s powerful. -However, there are big limits to pivot tables- mostly around the fact that you can’t manipulate any of the data or perform calculations here in this view. Not only that, but it’s restricted to this data set, so we can’t compare it side by side with other data like detailed purchase or costing information for example. -But now, once you have your pivot table set up the way you need and the data is there, you can click “Insert in Spreadsheet”
- 9:45 - 10:00 -When you click that button, you’ll be given a choice to either create a whole new spreadsheet, or, add it into an existing spreadsheet document that already has data.
- 10:00 - 11:00 -And right away, Odoo will take that data from the pivot table, and stick into spreadsheet form, inside the platform. And then the real fun begins. Now we can take that data and we can do things to it. -You can delete any of the columns and rows you don’t want, change the formatting as desired, cut and paste to move stuff around into different arrangements, and most importantly you can start interacting with the data using the same kinds of formulas and calculations that you would use in Excel or Google Sheets. -One of the most valuable benefits is that this data will continuously update in real time, because it is not static or frozen in time at the point you generated the spreadsheet. If I were to go into the Sales app, and go into one of these sale orders for example, and change a quantity of a product, that change is going to reflect on this spreadsheet as well.
- 11:00 - 11:25 (0:25) -So more specifically, I’d like to give you some idea of the full potential of this tool, as it pertains to the Odoo platform we all know and love. -To use spreadsheets inside of Odoo, you will need the documents app. We’ve had the documents app available for a few years now, but for many of us, I am pretty sure that the Documents app is about to become a lot more popular. -The thing is, one of the reasons why this tool is such a game-changer for Odoo is that it can be used across all of the major apps. So although all of the spreadsheets will be managed and accessed in the Documents app, the data will come from the different apps you have in your database.
- 11:25 - 11:35 -It can take information coming from your sales, or it could be financial data from accounting,
- 11:35 - 11:45 Or really any app where you have data. So, now I’m going to highlight a few use case examples in a few different apps, although the uses go way beyond that.
- 11:45 - 13:00 -So let’s start very simple. One way that you will use spreadsheets in Odoo is just to run a very quick ad hoc report. In other words you might not need to analyze your data like this all the time or ever again, but in the moment if you want to draw some quick conclusion, this is a great way to do it. -As you can see, this spreadsheet here was generated from a simple pivot table of sales- products up along the top, and by the date of order on the left. -Then after generating the spreadsheet, you can simply add rows and columns anywhere into the spreadsheet, and then add formulas like this formula here that shows us the change in sales from the previous day. You’ll be happy to know that conditional formatting works great in Odoo Spreadsheets, so it can easily highlight things like negative or positive with color changes. -Now this is obviously a really simple formula but it’s extremely valuable to keep in mind that as the data changes in the sales app and you get more sales, the spreadsheet will continuously update without having to export anything or worry about an integration. You just go into the documents app at any time and you’ll be able to view the report as it updates throughout the day in real time.
- 13:00 - 14:00 -Okay, here is another example, this time using pivot table data from the CRM app. Now, I chose CRM but you’ll see that this type of report will work anywhere in the system because it’s really just a report of activities logged, which, if you know Odoo, you can log activities wherever there is a chatter, so obviously it also works for Helpdesk, and for the Project app, Inventory, etc. - The purpose here is to use the spreadsheet tool in order to give your employees clear KPIs and let them or a manager view their progress towards that goal over time. In this scenario let’s say we want our sales people to make 20 calls per day. So these cells here are fed by a pivot table that monitors the number of calls logged each day per sales rep. You’ll find that after you bring the pivot table in, you can manipulate the look and feel of the spreadsheet by reformatting however you need. -Then, I added this column over here that takes the avg number for the week. And because I love conditional formatting so much, I put a rule that highlights it red if they’re below their avg of 20 that we’re looking for.
- 14:00 - 15:30 -So while that is certainly nice to look at over the week, one of the most powerful aspects of our spreadsheets tool is that you are able to feed multiple pivot table reports into a single spreadsheet document, organized into multiple individual sheets just like with Excel or Google Sheets. So what we have on this sheet is a report of just the calls made so far today, shown in column B. -Then the columns C and D over here are calculated with formulas. C shows us their percentage towards reaching their daily goal of 20 calls, D shows the quantity left. -Column E is taking their weekly average from the first sheet and comparing to see how they are doing compared to their average. So this way, not only can you see how they are doing currently, but you can see how they are comparing over time. -Of course I used pretty basic formulas here but honestly for any job with a lot of calls or emails or any type of repetitive task like this, KPIs are extremely critical to both the individual and the manager to see who is doing the best, who needs to improve and trends over time. Especially if your employees are all quarantined and working from home and it isn’t easy to see who is productive or not right away.
- 15:30 - 16:00 - Also important to point out, for any of these spreadsheets, once you have built them out and configured them, they can be re-used as templates that keep all of the formulas and formatting you want. So if you want you can create a new spreadsheet that follows that same template but possibly relating to a different data set entirely. -In fact, you will have access to a few default spreadsheet templates that we provide for you on any new v14 database. -So again, KPIs like these can be used across all of Odoo as needed, and it solves a problem we’ve had in the past where it is difficult to have a one-size-fits-all approach to KPI goals.
- 16:00 - 17:00 - Ok I’m going to fly through a few more examples briefly before we conclude. - Calculation of commission is quite possibly the single biggest reason why we’re excited about the new Odoo Spreadsheets tool. For years and years, customers have asked “how can we calculate commissions inside of Odoo?” or wondering “why don’t we have a commissions app inside of Odoo?” -Honestly, Commissions for paying sales reps or affiliates can get pretty complicated. Sales people might have multiple tiers of commission pay rate. Maybe some products get a certain commission rate and other products have a different commission rate. Commission could be based off of a multiplier, or it could be a flat payout based on a particular minimum level of achievement. And there could be a cap or accelerators to factor in as well. -And so on and so forth. And it’s definitely the kind of thing where all the commission rules might completely change as organizations grow too! -So really, a spreadsheet is ideal for commission calculations.
- 17:00 - 17:45 - So, there are tons of ways that you might want to approach commission calculation in odoo, whether it’s based off of CRM activity, or based off of sales order lines, or based off of invoices in accounting. In this example, I am basing it off of sales order lines. - So a great way to handle commissions is to have one sheet that serves as your overall table of different commission rates. So you might have different rates per sales rep, different rates based on volume, and maybe the rate is to be multiplied by the $ amount or perhaps it’s just based on quantity sold. - Anyhow, you have it all the commission rate data here in one sheet, and it may or may not be fed in by special rate fields that you create on your users or employees.
- 17:45 - 18:10 - And then the way it works, is that you have another spreadsheet that is pulling in data from a Sales Report Pivot Table, showing sales of products per sales rep. And then you can have some detailed IF expressions that will pull in the correct commission rate from your commission rate table that we were just looking at. - I think IF expressions will really be your best friend in a situation like this. Things like identifying which product it is, or identifying the quantity, things like that that correspond with a rate on your other table. -
- 18:10 - 18:30 - Then of course you have a cell where the commission is actually calculated, maybe you’ll put IF statements in there as well if there are other factors you want it to consider like a minimum quantity bringing it to another tier or adding a cap, or an accelerator or something like that. - For a deep dive on commissions there’s another talk happening this year all about it you should watch. But no matter what you’ll probably want to approach every company’s commission requirements case by case to find the best way to set it up.
- 18:30 - 19:30 - One last quick example. One of the preset templates we’ll provide for you is for quarterly budgets based on the ledger activity for your different accounts in the Accounting app. It’s pretty great actually, because some of you may know that we already had a budgets tool in Odoo, but it’s not exactly the same thing. -The budgets tool we have had up until now is really more about setting budgets for projects or specific account budgetary positions, and the challenge with that tool is that you really need to set it up in advance, and it’s not necessarily always the fastest way to monitor a budget. -But now, with a spreadsheet like this, you can have any of your chart of accounts ledger info coming from journal entries populate a spreadsheet, and you can compare any of those values side by side with a goal budget. It’s nice and really easy to use something like this… setting a goal next to a real value and comparing. Perfect example of BI. -Easy to adjust over time, easy to keep an eye on, and any of these spreadsheets can be quickly shared or exported as needed using the built-in tools that we have in our Documents app.
- 19:30 - 20:10 - While we’re looking at a spreadsheet like this with a lot of detail, I want to highlight a really nice feature we allow you to use in the spreadsheets which is pretty special- it’s our filtering tool. - The filter tool is actually a customizable way to change the specific data that we are looking at… so in this case we’ve set a filter that tells us what specific year we’re looking at. Filters can be date-based, relational to specific fields, or actually just text based too which is really flexible. - The purpose of it, is to let your spreadsheet be instantly customizable kind of like how a pivot table is… it’s pretty powerful. It allows a single spreadsheet to basically switch over quickly to showing different data based on a change in the criteria. Other examples of using the filter tool are if you filter a field to show a different product that you’re examining, or show a different employee or sales rep, etc.
- 20:10 - 21:00 -And that’s just a few quick examples for ways to utilize the tool but the options are very widespread. In fact we’re very curious to hear from everyone in the Odoo Community to see what ideas you have for how you want to use it too! -With Odoo Version 14, you will be able to use our spreadsheet tool WITHIN the Odoo platform, and by doing so, -you will save time, -you will minimize human errors, -minimize cluttered file downloads, -you’ll maintain flexibility as your business evolves, -and you will maintain scalability as your business evolves. -most importantly you will no longer be running and hiding from your data. You will become the master of the data. -and will you still use excel? Maybe for now, sure- of course there’s still many reasons for having a tool like that, maybe to hold on to your data before you migrate it into odoo for example… but keep in mind this is just the first version of Odoo spreadsheets. -Maybe in 1 or 2 more versions, you will be able to truly say “forget you” to other spreadsheet software for good