Tips & TricksRapidStart Apps

Working with RapidStart Apps Data Using Excel Online

Steve Mordue·RapidStart Apps Team

To demonstrate how you can easily customize RapidStart Apps to meet your needs, we created this “Tips and Tricks” series. In this series we outline simple-to-perform solutions to common things customers ask about RapidStart Apps.

Did you know that Excel Online is directly integrated into RapidStart Apps? In this post, we’ll show you how to use this feature to manipulate data.

Working with RapidStart Apps Data Using Excel Online

Opening a View in Excel Online

We’ll start by opening a view in a RapidStart App — for example, Cases.

1Select the “Export to Excel” dropdown
2Select “Open in Excel Online”

Here you can see the same view of records in Excel Online. You can use any of the features of Excel Online to manipulate this data, then save it back to the RapidStart App.

Tip: This opens the same view you are looking at when launched. So, if you need a column that is not shown, add it to the view, or create a new view following the in-app documentation.

Filtering and Editing Data

Let’s say we want to deprioritize any High Priority cases where the status is “Waiting for Customer”. First, we will apply some filtering to this view.

1Select the dropdown arrow next to the column header
2Change the filter to “High”
3Also filter Case Status to “Waiting for Customer”

You now see only the cases that meet your filters. After editing the Priority field, click Save. The Import Data dialog appears — this should only take a minute, so you can close it and refresh the screen to see the changes.

Summary

This very simple example could have been accomplished directly in the view by filtering and selecting edit. But there are more advanced things you could do, like:

•Using Excel formulas to calculate or transform values
•Summing columns for quick totals
•Adding rows directly to be imported as new records

In many cases, working through Excel Online is a much quicker way to bulk-edit or import data into RapidStart Apps.

Try It Yourself

Take a free test drive of RapidStart Apps and explore the Excel Online integration and other built-in productivity features.

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Opening a View in Excel Online

We’ll start by opening a view in a RapidStart App — for example, Cases.

1Select the “Export to Excel” dropdown

2Select “Open in Excel Online”

Here you can see the same view of records in Excel Online. You can use any of the features of Excel Online to manipulate this data, then save it back to the RapidStart App.

Tip: This opens the same view you are looking at when launched. So, if you need a column that is not shown, add it to the view, or create a new view following the in-app documentation.

Filtering and Editing Data

Let’s say we want to deprioritize any High Priority cases where the status is “Waiting for Customer”. First, we will apply some filtering to this view.

1Select the dropdown arrow next to the column header

2Change the filter to “High”

3Also filter Case Status to “Waiting for Customer”

Summary

This very simple example could have been accomplished directly in the view by filtering and selecting edit. But there are more advanced things you could do, like:

•Using Excel formulas to calculate or transform values

•Summing columns for quick totals

•Adding rows directly to be imported as new records

In many cases, working through Excel Online is a much quicker way to bulk-edit or import data into RapidStart Apps.