The benefits of PersisTables

What are PersisTables?

The PersisTables toolkit is an Excel addin that provides a set of functions allowing an Excel user to save any range of cells from their workbooks into a managed storage area so the data can be secured outside of Excel, shared with other Excel users or delivered and received from other IT based applications. It will be of special interest to those who have End User Computing (EUC) responsibilities.

At its most basic it allows the user to capture the values from a range of cells in Excel into an in-memory Table referenced by a Handle. The Table can be saved into a structured storage area, which can be shared with other users as a PersisTable. PersisTables can be reloaded into Excel, displayed and manipulated using PersisTable Toolkit and certain Excel functions.

By simplifying the process of saving and retrieving data from Excel, this allows complex spreadsheets to be simplified, reduces the risk of data loss from corrupted spreadsheets and can be a building block for the migration of existing Excel based End User Computing (EUC) into more formal IT systems without losing the valuable ability to prototype and innovate within Excel.

Why PersisTables?

We know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but SatNavs have also shown us that it is not always the easiest route to follow. So when Excel users want to deliver the results of their calculations to others it is not necessarily the best solution to create a direct channel to each and every subscriber for the results. In fact much of modern computing is about transforming a set of data into various different results formats for use by other applications.

PersisTables takes the effort out of saving and loading data into Excel but also allows the sharing of data with other applications. Whether it is a simple range of data to be stored as a csv file or a complex hierarchical representation of a problem, the PersisTable Toolkit can capture, save, load and display the information easily. It provides tools to classify and manage the stored data, provides the ability to validate it prior to saving and supports evolution of data schemas a the business problems change.

If you rely on Excel for making critical business decisions; you have copies of spreadsheets sprouting around your organisation; if you email spreadsheets to others to share data then the PersisTables can simplify your way of working, reduce the risk of losing significant data and create an environment in which maintenance and development of spreadsheets can be effective and productive.

How can PersisTables help you?

PersisTables can bring huge benefits to both existing and future EUC applications. Major benefits arise as follows:-

• • More effective and efficient application checking becomes possible;
  • Major problems with spreadsheet congestion and complexity can be avoided;
  • Effective independent application auditing becomes feasible;
  • Realtime process monitoring and checking becomes practical;
  • Zero impact on existing Excel functionality or processes.

PersisTables is available for 3 months on a free trial basis after which there is an annual license fee of GBP xx.00.

Free Trial

PersisTables is easy to install and is supplied with an initial free 3-month license period. At the end of this initial 3-month period a user should 1) make a payment of the annual fee, and 2) supply his User Key in order to receive his new License Key which will extend his PersisTables license by another year.

The PersisTable package comes with comprehensive documentation, and is accompanied by a number of simple step-by-step examples demonstrating the major features. First time users will find following these examples is the best way to understand the workings and benefits of PersisTables.

The annual fee is GBP xx.00 per year which licenses the use of PersisTables by one user on one machine for one year.