Embedding model-driven spreadsheet queries in spreadsheet systems

Abstract

Spreadsheets are widely used not only to define mathematical expressions, but also to store large and complex data. To query such data is usually a difficult task to perform, usually for end user. In this work we embed the textual query language in the model-driven spreadsheet environment as a spreadsheet itself. The result is an expressive and powerful query environment that has knowledge of the business logic defined by the spreadsheet data (the spreadsheet model) to guide end users constructing correct queries.

The Spreadsheet Space: Eliminating the Boundaries of Data Cross-Referencing

“…7 Microsoft Excel is the de facto standard for Desktop Spreadsheets. 8 Google Docs and Microsoft Excel Online are the reference systems for Cloud Spreadsheets. We first reiterate that in spreadsheets, data propagation relies on a Publish/Subscribe mechanism through which cells subscribe to other cell updates.…”

“…The evolution toward Big Data has created an even stronger need for a smart combination of Cloud computing and End User computing as well as for effective techniques to move data back and forth between the Cloud and the local machines where the Data Scientists work [7]. To improve integration with Software Platforms, spreadsheets have recently incorporated new features to support SQL queries 2 [8], and were proposed for Real Time data access and visualization [9] and data integration and mashup [10]. None of the proposed spreadsheet evolutions, however, leverages the nature of spreadsheets, i.e., the presence of cell references or links.…”

ES-SQL: Visually querying spreadsheets

“…To simplify the spreadsheet querying process, we have proposed an Embedded Spreadsheet-Structured Query Language (ES-SQL) approach for end users [1], which relies on our previous work on model-driven spreadsheets where a concise model abstracts the structure and logic of a potentially large spreadsheet [2]. This abstraction allows queries to be expressed by names, instead of column letters, referencing entities.…”