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ALATION 2023.1: EMPOWERING BUSINESS USERS IN MICROSOFT OFFICE

By Salima Mangalji

Published on February 28, 2023




With the launch of our latest product release, 2023.1, business users can access
trusted data natively in an expanded suite of beloved products, as Alation
Connected Sheets now works with Microsoft Excel and Alation Anywhere will work
with Microsoft Teams. These new updates help teams collaborate more efficiently
by connecting the data intelligence of Alation to the productivity tools they
love.

Critical organizational data is often disparate, out-of-date, and hard to
understand without proper context. For this reason, people often struggle to
make vital business decisions as they face a complex data landscape. To where
can they turn to navigate that landscape with confidence? Metadata is the
information about data that gives it meaning and context. It helps to answer
basic, yet important questions like: “What does this data mean?”, “Which data is
used the most?”, “Where did it come from?”, and “Who are the subject matter
experts who know this data best?”.

By centralizing contextual information about data in Alation and pushing it out
to the tools and apps business users use daily, anyone working with data can
gain valuable background information. In this way, Alation is empowering
business users to use trusted data more wisely (and compliantly!) no matter
where they work.


BUSINESS LEADERS ARE DATA LEADERS

According to a Global Data and Analytics Survey conducted by PwC, highly
data-driven organizations are 3 times more likely to report significant
improvements in decision-making. And even though business users are often
overlooked as data consumers, they actually make many data-driven decisions in
an organization. Teams such as finance, sales, marketing, and operations all
need to provide data-derived solutions, conduct proactive transformation, and to
understand their customers.

Where do these business users work? Most enterprises rely on Microsoft Office
applications like Excel for visualization and analysis and Teams for
collaboration; therefore, it is important to bring trusted data to users where
they already are. With this release, business users can self-serve
contextualized data.


CONNECTED SHEETS FOR MS EXCEL

In our last release, 2022.4, Alation announced the launch of Alation Connected
Sheets for Google Sheets. Today, our Connected Sheets product has now expanded
to Microsoft Excel.

With Alation Connected Sheets, business users can browse and pull the most
current, compliant data directly from cloud sources into a spreadsheet – without
SQL or subject matter expert assistance.

The same is now true for Excel. With a few clicks, users can self-serve natively
within an Excel spreadsheet, without going through a long process to get the
right information. They can even set their spreadsheets to auto-refresh on
schedule, saving valuable time, money, and resources (and building trust across
teams!).

With this refreshed contextual information, users create up-to-date
visualizations with the fresh data in the sheet within one tool, instead of
repeating processes every time a data source is updated.

Ultimately, governance remains key to Connected Sheets; with authorized log-in
access and trust flags for endorsed, warned or deprecated signals available on
the interface, compliant and trusted data is now visible directly in the sheet.


ALATION ANYWHERE FOR MS TEAMS

Every data user has their beloved suite of tools. With Alation Anywhere, we meet
them in the tools they use the most. This product surfaces rich contextual
information via previews, allowing users to interact with data objects within
common collaborative applications such as Slack and Tableau. These data objects
could include anything from business glossary terms, to a database table or a
SQL query with helpful descriptions. This drives collaboration between disparate
team members, connecting those who live in the data with those who depend on the
data to make decisions.

Our metadata previews will also soon be available on Microsoft Teams. As an
example, if an analyst wanted to send information to a colleague about a
distribution table, they could send a link to the Alation object within MS
Teams. The colleague would then be able to view the table in MS Teams with
contextual information such as: tags, descriptions, top users and more.
Ultimately, these new updates deliver contextual, trustworthy data within
peoples’ natural workflows.


MEETING BUSINESS USERS WHERE THEY ARE

Let’s take a look at a scenario where an Operations Manager utilizes Alation to
mitigate a business risk through applications she uses regularly like Tableau,
MS Teams and Excel:








CONCLUSION

Today, more than 78 million data workers are advanced spreadsheet users (IDC
Report); their ability to access clean data on spreadsheets is critical for
business success. In the past, business users have had to work with IT to get
the fresh data they need… only for it to deprecate in days. This not only leads
to bad business decisions, it corrupts trust between teams. Yet the usability of
spreadsheets continues to make them a tool of choice for millions. With this
update, spreadsheet users can restore trust in not just the analyses they build,
but the decisions they drive.

Fostering a data culture within an organization can be effortless if people can
access trusted data (and its context!) in the tools they use daily. This is the
first, critical step in building a data culture. As a data intelligence
platform, Alation’s vision is to connect to everything, and be embraced and
adopted by everyone. In this light, it’s tough to overstate the value of
quality, contextualized data in beloved tools like Excel and MS teams.

Curious to learn more? Check out the press release for details.

   CONTENTS

 * Business leaders are data leaders
 * Connected Sheets for MS Excel
 * Alation Anywhere for MS Teams
 * Meeting business users where they are
 * Conclusion



TAGGED WITH

Alation News
Data Culture
Data Intelligence


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