Great question.  I have talked with a number of potential customer as well as actual customers.  The most unusual application came from a school educator.  The course being taught was a continuing education course in programming VBA code within Excel.  The instructor was looking for a way to present the assignments to the students and both receive and track receipt of completed assignments from the students. 

Distributed Spreadsheet was an easy solution.  The instructor creates a workbook containing a single worksheet for each student.  Each student is assigned Contributor status for their page.  The instructor put all the assignment details on the first worksheet and then copied the first worksheet to all the other pages.  The worksheets are sent to the students via Distributed Spreadsheet.  Each student receives only their assigned worksheet.  When the students complete their assignment, they return their worksheet containing the assignment ... (more)

Yes, sort of.  On the Distributed Spreadsheet website is a video tour of Distributed Spreadsheet.  The tour is based on the distributing, returning, collecting and merging of worksheets using one of the included sample workbooks.  The tour is probably better than talking to an actual user as the variety of usage models are all presented; most users employ a single usage model.  Give this link a try and see if this addresses your information needs.   http://www.c-e-p-inc.com/video/DS_Tour.htm

**** I am happy to announce the availability of Version 2.0 of Distributed Spreadsheet.  The 12-Contributor limit is NO MORE!!!!! ******

FREE upgrades for all current customers. 

In version 1.06 of Distributed Spreadsheet, the limit of 12 applies only to the merging process.  This means that in a single merge of contributed worksheets, only the work of 12 Contributors can be merged in a single step.  Allow me to explain further.

Distributed Spreadsheet works by assigning users as “Contributors” to worksheets within a workbook.  Let’s assume the workbook in question had a total of 25 worksheets.  There are 20 employees who will act as Contributors and each has been assigned a unique page within the workbook (it is permitted to assign a single user to multiple worksheets if necessary.  It is not recommended to assign multiple users to the same worksheet). ... (more)

If I protect cells in my workbook, will using Distributed Spreadsheet bypass the protection?

No.  Distributed Spreadsheet retains all of the capabilities of Microsoft Excel while enabling multi-user convenience.  Features such as macros, cell protection, VBA scripts, Pivot tables and others work as expected.  

If you have questions about this application of Distributed Spreadsheet, please drop a note to info@distributedspreadsheet.com.

All Distributed Spreadsheets are transmitted in an encrypted format.  The Distributed Spreadsheet software is the only software that knows how to unlock the files.  For this reason, a copy of software must be installed to both send and receive worksheets.  While some may argue that this inhibits the broad adoption of the product, the security benefits and ease of both sending and receiving worksheets make the small price an easy trade-off. 

So what will $34.95 buy if not a license of Distributed Spreadsheet?

$35 is the price of 1 small meal in any major city in the US…..before the bar tab.  Is it worth 1 meal?

$35 is the price of a small round of drinks in most bars during normal business hours.  Is it worth 1 round?

$35 is the value of the 20 minutes of time for an average executive.  Is it worth 20 minutes of your time?

Yes, we made a pricing decision a long time ago to require everyone to possess a valid license in order to be ... (more)

The challenge:  provide route managers of a food products company with an easy-to-use tool for tracking sales out and “Stock needed” information.  Cost was a concern.  Using a familiar tool versus learning a new tool was desired.  Real-time access could not be a required.  Microsoft Excel was the obvious solution but how to get the information from the route mangers without introducing a large learning curve.

Distributed Spreadsheet met the requirements and a sample of the resulting workbook can be downloaded from the Community Forum section of the Distributed Spreadsheet web site. 

Using a variety of Excel features, a worksheet was created that provided drop-down boxes for selecting products sold or needing to be ordered.  Names of accounts were selected from drop downs menus.  Costs of orders were quickly calculated in order for the store owner to be able to immediately approve the order. ... (more)

A question that is frequently raised as I talk with prospective customers is the viability of Distributed Spreadsheet as strictly a “push” tool.  The answer is absolutely.  As there are a number of large accounting applications that are able to output reports in Excel format with breakpoints at worksheets rather than the traditional printed page, the opportunity is very clear.  Installing a license of Distributed Spreadsheet on each machine where 1 of more of the worksheets will be destined allows for a secure way to send out individual pages of the report without having to cut out the individual pages.

Thus a large, international company could perhaps produce a quarterly financial report with a single worksheet for each agent’s territory with a summary page for each region and possibly other levels of roll-up. 

The territory manager is assigned as a Contributor for their respective worksheet. ... (more)

Imagine running a small business that oversees the acquisition and build-out of franchise locations.  How would you track the status of each site as it progresses through the steps from basic site selection through lease negotiation to the management of build-outs. 

That is what a property management company is Phoenix is doing.  Using Distributed Spreadsheet, a team of 8 are overseeing the process of simultaneously bringing up multiple franchise sites for multiple franchise companies and tracking all of it through a large Excel workbook.

The setup of the workbook started out as a listing of the major milestones for a single, generic site location and build project.  As the team worked through the initial tracking process, the worksheet became worksheets and were changed to add greater levels of details through breaking the milestones into smaller and smaller distinct steps. ... (more)

Welcome to the offical blog for any and all users of Distributed Spreadsheet.  This blog is designed to allow users and developers to share creative uses of Distributed Spreadsheet as well as allow users to pose usage-related questions.  Please be sure to sign up for the RSS feed in order to stay current with the latest thinking and wild ideas.

Mark Ryan