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6 Online Dashboards To Present Your Google Sheets Data

Excel Spreadsheet Diagram

When it’s more and more common for teams to collaborate around data in Google Sheets, you’ll find yourself needing a way to work with and access that data whenever you need to–not whenever your data analyst gets a chance.

But the problem is that if you aren’t too savvy with MS Excel, putting together your own dashboard for your Google Sheets data is downright overwhelming. It can be a steep learning curve you neither have the time nor the patience for.

As businesses are analyzing data that’s more complex than ever before, vendors specializing in data and business intelligence tools are offering out-of-the-box, online tools to make it easier.

These type of online dashboards can be the perfect solution. They let you get the same professional data visualization and analysis without all the technicalities.

The following 6 dashboard tools, for instance, have simple to use interfaces, features and data connection widgets that can integrate your Google Sheets data. Check them out.

1. Geckoboard

Geckoboard starts our list with its free account option. Powerful enough for Salesforce data and simple enough to use with Google sheets data. You can set it up as you would upload a file. It’s just a matter of creating a connection to your Google account or linking to the file via URL as a data source. You can find a good run down of Geckoboard’s spreadsheets integration on the site.

2.VizyDrop

VizyDrop is a data visualization tool that can easily integrate your Google Sheets data. Features with this tool include chart sharing, a dashboard editor, updated data visualizations, the ability to work with custom sources, and built-in app connectors.

This tool is on the simplistic side, but it’s free to use. You can start dropping in your data in their demo space, but you’ll have to sign up to save your data.

3. Slemma

Slemma also makes things super easy for you with its built-in integration with Google Drive available for all types of accounts. This dashboard tool provides you with automatic update and scheduled report delivery features.

Other features include one-click integration, calculations, automated pivot tables, and email dashboards. And if you’re new to working with data and aren’t sure how to best visualize it, you can get some inspiration from the data visualizations and dashboards other Slemma members have done. There’s a free 14-day trial available to check out.

4. BIME Analytics

Source: BIME Analytics

You can connect a number of any data sources you have with BIME Analytics–including online cloud services like Google Drive. BIME Analytics allows you to pull data from Google Sheets and cache datasets. There’s no storage; analysis is always live and direct. You can test it out with a 10 day free trial from the site.

5. Cyfe

In addition to other integrations to third party services like Google Analytics, Cyfe can also integrate your Google Sheets data directly. You have the ability to archive data, export reports, and share your dashboards. Its widgets will allow you to connect any of your data that’s on the web. You can sign up for free or go with the premium account for $19 /month.

6. Datahero

This tool touts itself as the “fastest and easiest way to understand your data”. DataHero is a data visualization tool that works with the data you already use in cloud storage services, or in files on your computer.

Import your data from cloud services, create insightful charts and organize them in separate dashboards to get the most out of your data. Once you sign up you get free trial access to their Premium service, which is a good starting point for exploring your dashboard needs. As a bonus, there is also a free account which will do just fine for visualizing your data on a lower scale.

Marrying business intelligence and Google Sheets data doesn’t have to be complicated or something you dread. On the contrary, it can be as simple as uploading your data online. See if any of the above are a good fit for your data needs.

How To Export A Table From PDF AutoCAD Drawing Into Excel?

Part 2 of 13 in our How To Use AutoCAD series

Working with PDF documents is difficult. Just working with the data itself can be time consuming. This is especially true when you need to extract something as precise as a PDF table into Excel. It requires that data to be transferred, cell by cell correctly into a spreadsheet, formatted perfectly and faithfully to the original.

So you can imagine how exporting a table from a PDF drawing to Excel is somewhat more complicated than exporting a table straight from AutoCAD to Excel.

However, this can be easily accomplished with Able2Extract’s “Custom PDF to Excel” conversion feature.

You can download the 7 day free trial and follow the steps below to export your table.

1.Open your PDF drawing with Able2Extract.

2. In the select panel, click on “Area”. Left click and drag to mark the table that you would like to export.

Selecting PDF Drawing Content

3. Once selected, click on “Excel”.

4. You’ll be presented with a Convert to Excel panel. Export simple tables automatically by clicking “Convert”. For now, stick to the Custom conversion and hit “Define”.

PDF Drawing Table Conversion

5. Now you have a complete control over your PDF to Excel conversion. Use the toolbar on the right to add and remove output columns and rows. When satisfied, check the “Show Preview” box to review your results.

6. Click “Convert” and save the file.

PDF To Excel Results

Converting AutoCAD tables to Excel may sound like a complicated procedure at first, but with the right tool, you can easily maneuver around that obstacle and work with any AutoCAD tables you come across.

Get Ready For March Madness With Able2Extract 10

Basketball Slam Dunk

Microsoft Excel can be intimidating. True. But a big pro is that it can be a life saver when wrestling with numbers and data.

Now, if you’re asking yourself when in the world would you have to deal with numbers and data, we have two words for you: March Madness.

March Madness 2016 is almost here and you can bet that everyone who doesn’t (or does) deal with data will be wading in conference standings and school stats over the next few weeks.

If you’re running a March Madness pool for your office, using MS Excel will be the best way to analyze, track and digest all the information you need to fill out your brackets and keep your pool in order.

Yet that’s only half the battle. The other half is getting that data into Excel. And this is where Able2Extact 10 can help you get everything in order.

Transfer Any March Madness Data To Excel

In Excel, you can streamline and combine any existing data you want to keep as reference or update as the tournament goes on.

Player and team data will usually be available in a downloadable PDF. But what if you have a Word file? A PowerPoint presentation? No worries.

You can get your March Madness data into Excel spreadsheets regardless of the format you have. Just open your file in Able2Extract 10 and select the content you want converted (a page, line or the entire file). Then simply click on the Convert to Excel command on toolbar.

Easily Convert Complex Team Information With A Few Settings

There are a lot of pain points associated with dealing with data when managing a pool—or several, one of them being the many different formats you have to consolidate and analyze. If you have differently formatted tables or statistical charts spanning pages, it can be a nightmare.

Good news is that you can tailor a PDF to Excel conversion according to the table structures in your file. Able2Extract has a few PDF to Excel conversion settings that make the job easier to identify and deal with the source document’s table structure. Select your settings before you make the conversion and you’re good to go.

Able2Extract Excel Conversion Settings

Customize Your Data Extractions Into Excel

You may also need specific data extractions for analyzing detailed statistics. For example, you may want to eliminate the data for lower seeded teams or scrape only the data from top teams in the last year to create your own shortlist.

For this, you can simply perform a Custom PDF to Excel conversion and filter out that information even before you even hit the Convert button. You can move rows, columns and even preview your conversion results to see if you have all the numbers you need in the right place.

Able2Extract Custom Conversion Interface

Convert March Madness Statistics In PDF to CSV

Which team you root for depends just as much on the numbers as it does on a team’s dynamics. But we’re talking about 68 Division I college teams plus stats on individual players, coaches and so on. That’s a lot of data!

It, thus, may be worthwhile to have database tools for March Madness. Or, if you’re tech savvy enough, you may have a tool or script that can crunch the numbers to predict the perfect March Madness bracket.

Able2Extract-CSV-Conversion-Option

In either case, you can get your March Madness PDF data into raw .CSV or delimited formats. Just click on the Convert to CSV command in Able2Extract. It’ll get your data working with the databases and tools you already have in place.

Organize Your Data According To Worksheets

In some instances, you may have PDF data on teams all lumped into one single PDF with each team on one page or separate categories of data on each page.

It’s convenient for distributing and consuming the information, but hardly so if you want to separate that data. For instance, if you end up wanting to analyze each of the Final Four teams separately, you may want to organize and record each team’s information into separate worksheets.

Excel Single Worksheet Option

Now, you can go into your spreadsheet and move all your data around via copy-paste. But an easier way is to uncheck the Single Worksheet option in Able2Extract’s Excel/CSV Conversion Options before you make your conversion.

This will automatically convert each PDF page into a separate worksheet, saving you the hassle of doing it manually.

No matter what type of pool your group decides to set up, knowing your stats is essential. Whether it be analyzing wins, losses and odds or keeping track of results and pool entries, Excel will be your best bet. The key is getting that data set up properly for analysis. Hopefully a few of the tips above helped!

So with March Madness just around the corner, how are you filling out your brackets this year?

How to Export Tables From AutoCAD to Excel Format?

Part 1 of 13 in our How To Use AutoCAD series

When working with AutoCAD, you never work completely in isolation. AutoCAD workflows are always about collaboration, review and approval. As such, AutoCAD projects and designs will always be connected and work in conjunction with other formats.

More often than not, the detailed tables of information of a design will need to be either recorded, edited or entered into Excel spreadsheets. That being said, you’ll need to know how to get that table into Excel.

To export a table from AutoCAD and edit it in Microsoft Excel simply select the table, then right click and choose “Export”. The table will be exported in .CSV file format.

Next, right click on the exported .CSV file and from the options menu choose Open with Excel.

Once the table has been opened in the Microsoft Excel, save it as an .xlsx file and you can instantly start editing the spreadsheet.

How To Learn AutoCAD

AutoCAD Technical Design

In this day and age, anyone can pick up a new skill and turn it into a high-paying career asset. This is especially true for the tech savvy who already tinker around with and explore software on their own. They can translate that hobby into valuable skills needed for certain positions or tasks.

For instance, being able to create high quality AutoCAD images, 3D digital drawings and the like, is an extremely valuable skillset. Because of its extremely niched usage, AutoCAD isn’t a software skill likely to be common among average computer users.

And even if you’re not learning it for professional reasons, you may simply be curious about AutoCAD software, wanting to learn more about it.

But where do you start? With such a complex piece of software, the learning process is sure to be confusing. Fear not. Below are some basic answers, handy tips and a few pointers on how to learn your way around AutoCAD.

How To Learn AutoCAD On Your Own?

The best way to start learning AutoCAD on your own is to find an online course or tutorials that best suit your learning preferences and needs. For example, if you’re dominantly a visual learner you may want to start with YouTube video tutorials or enroll an online course with lots of video materials. If you prefer to learn by reading step by step instructions followed by images and screenshots, you may want to start with a basic course offering such materials. Fortunately, there are many AutoCAD learning resources to be found on the Internet. The first resource that comes to mind: Autodesk official training guide, tools and learning tools.

Additionally, we’ve compiled a list of websites that provide free online AutoCAD courses, tutorials and complementary exercises.

Beside that, here are some additional helpful tips for self-learning with AutoCAD:

Find blogs and tutorials specific to your field of work. For example, if you want to learn how to use AutoCAD for mechanical workflows, try to find a blog or tutorial that specifically covers this topic.
Search for exercises that will help you to memorize various commands by practice. He goes on to point out that this way of learning boosts your morale and self-esteem: each time you complete an exercise, you feel more and more accomplished.
Start by learning how to use 2D drawing tools and applying what you learn to 2D drawings. If you don’t have any 2D drawings, just search the web; there are many 2D drawings available online. Once you get the hang of 2D drawing tools, then go for 3D which are mostly the same ones as 2D except for some specialized tools.
Practice, practice and then practice some more. This is the rule that applies to learning new skills or mastering a software application such as AutoCAD.

How Can Kids Learn AutoCAD?

Although AutoCAD isn’t a general purpose software application that all children will necessarily use in their higher education or future line of work, they can certainly learn how to draft 2D and 3D models in AutoCAD. Most importantly, a Quora thread shows that there’s an interest in teaching kids how to use AutoCAD.

A good place to start would be to teach a class or a child how to use one of the widely available free and easy-to-learn online apps for creating and printing 3D models. It’s fun and good preparation for working with a more advanced desktop software program for 2D and 3D drafting such as AutoCAD.

The next step would be to do a few demos on how to use the key commands and solve common problems. Provide them with video lessons that you can create yourself or choose and use free online AutoCAD tutorials.

There are also ready-made exercises and quizzes to test students’ progress. Follow their progress with the program and assign different challenges based on their individual performance, interest and engagement.

If you’re teaching, let’s say a bunch of 8th graders, chances are that majority of them won’t be engaged enough to become proficient in AutoCAD, especially if they don’t aspire to become architects or engineers. Therefore, adapt the course to accommodate for this and yet keep encouraging and challenging the students who do have higher engagement and interest levels.

How To Become An AutoCAD Professional?

Once you’ve mastered the basics and learned how to create basic drawings and blueprints in AutoCAD using any or all of the above mentioned techniques, you’re ready to take your AutoCAD skills and expertise to the next level. Experienced AutoCAD users like Raymond Owusu suggest finding professional, complex drawings and trying to replicate them. Another good tip is to join AutoCAD forums and communities and ask how to do some difficult things. Consistent practice and especially real life projects will help you become a power user or even an AutoCAD professional.

The easiest way to test and prove your expertise in AutoCAD is to take a test provided by Autodesk and earn official certification status that will validate your drafting and design skills. Autodesk certifications are widely recognized credentials in the CAD industry and can establish you as an AutoCAD professional and further your design career.

How To Get Autodesk Certification For AutoCAD?

In order to become Autodesk AutoCAD certified user or professional, it is necessary to take and pass a suitable exam offered by Autodesk.

You can find the detailed exam preparation information on the Autodesk website. This includes exam topics and objectives, recommended preparation methods for different certification levels, requirements, training options, and other related info.