There’s a reason those boxes on Excel are called cells – working inside them feels like being in prison! (Poor Excel, it really had a good run as a tremendously useful tool, and now we just can’t resist bashing it). As important as attractive visuals are to doing business online these days, the simple truth is that we want our data to look prettier.
And we don’t want to pay a fortune. A more recent tool than Excel, Tableau, allows users to create stunning data visualizations and has a slick interface, but certainly doesn’t fit into the bootstrapped budget, costing at least $1,000 per user a year.
What’s a poor boy to do?
Stop feeling graphic envy and have a look at Slemma.
Slemma is a data visualization tool that has similar functionality to Tableau, is gentle on the wallet, and packs neatly into the Google Drive experience for added convenience.
Since it’s browser-based, Slemma lets users pull in data quickly while they’re working, without toggling between several tools. After easy set up, Slemma grabs data automatically from a variety of sources – file by URL, Drive, Dropbox, Google Analytics, Oracle, MySQL, etc. – with no trouble at all.
Slemma keeps an eye squarely on the essential timesaving tools – creating charts, drill down information, easy filters and analytics for displaying information in the most useful fashion.
Whether for yourself or for clients, Slemma lets you put together attractive reports and content such as infographics without breaking a sweat. Simple dashboards organize graphics, while links to a dashboard make it easy to collaborate and share. Each user can customize both dashboard settings and the appearance of charts to meet the requirements of any business. A white label solution, Slemma also lets owners give their data a look that’s consistent with their branding.
Their browser-centric orientation aims to put Slemma in the background of workflow, letting businesses display and analyze data without breaking stride. In the company’s own words, “Slemma has been tediously crafted to have the most intuitive interface possible, one-click collaboration, easy data connections, and access from anywhere.”
And it’s all at a very reasonable price. A Basic account is free and a Pro account runs just $29 per month. No extra hardware, support, or special training necessary.
It’s one thing to put together data so that it’s instantly graspable to the eye, and another thing to make the assembly and display of the data as pleasing as the visual representation itself. Now that’s smart business intelligence.
Wanna make eye-catching reports without shelling out big bucks? Check out slemma.com, and keep out of spreadsheet jail.
Photo Credits
Slemma | Mikko Lemola/Shutterstock | agsandrew/Shutterstock
