Google Sheets and Excel Online vs iPushPull – Why choose iPushPull?

We’re often asked about the differences between iPushPull vs Google Sheets and Excel Online. The Google and Microsoft applications attempt to replicate desktop spreadsheets but offer vastly reduced functionality and integration. And they don’t tackle the data security and access control issues that face all users who share spreadsheets with their colleagues and clients. In this respect, web-hosted sheets are not much better than a spreadsheet saved on a shared drive.

We decided to think different. We wanted to let our customers retain all the features of their desktop applications but also give them the convenience of cloud access to their data. So we built iPushPull.

Google Sheets and Excel Online vs iPushPull: Share your data without compromising on functionality

iPushPull integrates directly with your desktop Microsoft Excel, so you retain all the features of the desktop application and can continue to use your local database links, live feeds and custom macros. iPushPull lets you share some or all of the data from your sheet with whoever you choose, wherever they are. And because you’re still using your full desktop application you can still see your data when you don’t have web access – for example, when you’re on the train.

Your latest LIVE data available on any device

Whether the data in your desktop Excel spreadsheet is entered manually, updated by a live feed or imported from a local ERP or CRM system, iPushPull lets you share it with other Excel users and view it on the web or mobile. iPushPull can be easily integrated into any website – we’ve even developed a highly-rated plugin for WordPress-powered sites.

Once you’ve started sharing data from your spreadsheets, iPushPull will be updated every time your data changes – there’s no need to save your sheet. Your colleagues and clients will see the data update live in their spreadsheets or on any mobile device. There’s no need to reopen the file or hit refresh.

Superior access control

When you share a Google or Excel spreadsheet with someone, they get access to all the data contained within it. iPushPull lets you control access at the sheet, range or even at the individual cell level. So you can choose to share just the critical information from your sheet with the individuals or groups of people who need to see it, with no chance of over-sharing.

Complete security – spreadsheet data encrypted from end-to-end

Google Sheets and Excel Online are basically files stored on a cloud service. As such, they’re vulnerable to the kind of security breaches which have, sadly, become a regular occurrence. iPushPull lets you encrypt your data before it leaves your device, so it’s totally secure until it reaches the intended recipient. We can’t read your data, or give anyone else access to it, even if we wanted to! And we have some exciting developments in the pipeline that will give you even greater control over where, when and by whom your data can be accessed.

Consolidate and summarise data from across your business and customer base

iPushPull lets you pull data from multiple remote spreadsheets and mobile devices into a single sheet, automatically. It’s easy to build summary reports using data from across your business, regardless of where the data was entered or the application used to enter it. You don’t need a developer to create your own user-focussed B2B or B2C applications scaling to 10s, 100s or even 1000s of users. This just isn’t possible with web-hosted sheets.

Share data across all the applications you use – even using SMS

The iPushPull Excel Add-In works with all versions of desktop Microsoft Excel from 2007 to 2016. You can also access your data with our desktop and mobile websites (and with our upcoming Google Sheets add-in and Android and iOS apps, too). And when you’re not connected to the internet, you can even push and pull your data using SMS. When you’re using Google Sheets or Office 365 you’re locked into a walled garden.

iPushPull gives you desktop functionality, cloud connectivity, mobile access and enterprise-grade permissioning, security and encryption.

April 6, 2016April 8, 2016

End-to-end encryption for all Whatsapp messages …but not for spreadsheets!

Hot on the heels from the security fob off from Apple to the US government, WhatsApp is updating its messenger app with strong encryption so that every text and voice call will be highly protected for their 1 billion+ users.

After starting the process in 2014, Facebook owned Whatsapp have fully completed their roll out of Signal Protocol to all of their app users. Developed by Open Whisper Systems, the open source code was made famous by US whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden.

encryption

What does end-to-end encryption mean?

In a nutshell, end-to-end encryption means only the sender and receiver can view a message and no content or information is visible on Whatsapp’s servers without encryption keys, something which Whatsapp does not store, also commonly known as zero-knowledge. Messages are encrypted before they leave a users device which means that if the US government demanded to see users communications, Whatsapp would be unable to provide it due to the encryption and Whatsapp does not store the key to decrypt it.

Secure your spreadsheets with end-to-end encryption

As security is paramount in today’s world iPushPull built its content sharing platform with end-to-end encryption since its inception.

By using iPushPull you can use end-to-end encryption for all of your important spreadsheets that contain sensitive and confidential information. iPushPull already offers server and client-side encryption, providing end-to-end security for your documents and data. In addition, our patent-pending access control will add further layers of security, making iPushPull significantly more secure than the vast majority of commonly-used file and data sharing platforms. iPushPull enables granular levels of security and access on a cell by bell basis within a spreadsheet. Please register for a free trial to find out more.

Technical overview of Whatsapp end-to-end encryption

For a full technical overview of Whatsapp’s encryption please go here and for Open Whisper Systems here.

March 10, 2016March 15, 2016

Excel Add-In for iPushPull: Download our new version now

We’ve been working hard here at iPushPull developing a host of exciting new features to help you get the most out of our Microsoft Excel Add-In. It’s available to download now for registered users. If you haven’t already registered, why not do it now (it’s free!)?

Download the latest Excel Add-In for iPushPull Now

What’s new with the latest version of Excel Add-In

Our new ribbon makes finding your pages and sharing Excel content a breeze. Search and preview pages before pushing or pulling

Insert live pushes and pulls as new worksheets in your existing workbooks and automatically overlay web formatting over a live pull

New ‘URL’ option for our =iPullDisplayInfo(...) worksheet function allows you to create clickable links from your spreadsheets to iPushPull pages

New =iPullTime(...) worksheet function allows you to control exactly when your live pushes occur and reliably push cells containing volatile functions

Share Excel Charts Online

Charts! You can now share Excel charts online by pushing them to an iPushPull page just as you would any other Excel range, and even include them in a wordpress site just like this one:

We’ve added support for Excel 2016 and high-resolution displays

Vertical alignment added to cell formatting

There’s a lot more to discover too, so why not download it now and check out our support site for more information, tutorials, and videos. Want to know more about our popular WordPress plug-in? You can find out all about it here: Embed live Excel spreadsheets in web pages using our Free WordPress Plugin

About iPushPull

iPushPull‘s services enable its customers to securely share live data between desktop applications like Microsoft Excel, and distribute documents and research on a fully access-controlled and audited platform. With iPushPull’s Research Delivery Platform you can take control of your research distribution. To date, it has won two UK Government grants for its innovative research and development work.

October 9, 2015November 19, 2018

Embed live Excel spreadsheets in web pages using our WordPress Plugin

We’ve had a great response to the ipushpull WordPress plugin we released back in August! The plugin lets you display live Excel data in your webpages when you’re using desktop Excel. We weren’t entirely sure what people would do with it and it’s been fascinating to find out the kind of uses it’s being put to. Here’s what some of our customers have been doing:

Monetizing the results of data mining and number crunching (using Excel VBA)

Excel VBA lets you build powerful applications in desktop Excel but they just don’t work in Excel Online. ipushpull lets you retain the power and flexibility of your desktop sheets but also lets you see them updating live on the web. The following customer project is still under wraps so unfortunately we can’t be too specific. As soon as it’s been uncloaked we’ll publish full details!

One of our customers in the travel sector uses custom Excel VBA to pull live data from multiple public APIs into their spreadsheet. They then analyse this raw data with bespoke algorithms, and display the resulting information in an ipushpull-enabled sheet. Each time this sheet updates, our customer’s WordPress website updates too. This derived information is so valuable that they are able to charge their own customers for access to it. Building a standalone app to do all this would be expensive and inflexible – ipushpull makes it easy and it’s extremely good value, of course!

Displaying live data from business-critical systems on the web (ERP and CRM)

Many companies still depend on locally-hosted ERP and CRM systems and are reluctant to migrate to web-hosted alternatives because of the expense, disruption and security risk. These kinds of systems generally don’t have native web capabilities. So how can you access data from them when you’re out of the office? Step forward Excel and ipushpull…

Excel lets you import data from any local database directly into your spreadsheets using an ODBC link. One customer, a lighting manufacturer in Pennsylvania, uses this approach to pull purchase order information from their ERP system into Excel. ipushpull publishes this data to a dashboard which is displayed on a monitor in their workshop, so the team always knows when to expect materials. ipushpull makes it easy to link legacy systems to the web and, because you control the content and layout of what you publish, it’s simple to update when your requirements change.

Password Protected Pricelists

ipushpull pages can be public, so everyone can see them, or private, so they can only be viewed by the people you specify. Another customer, a supplier of motorcycle spares, wants to keep some of his price lists private for his favoured customers only. So he updates this list every day and publishes it to an ipushpull page which is encrypted using a password that he’s shared with those customers.

We’ve built some powerful features into ipushpull:

Use it to display live Excel data on your webpages
You don’t need to save the source spreadsheet to update the data
Your content updates automatically – the reader does not need to refresh the browser to get the latest update
You choose the range of cells that gets displayed
You control the update frequency – every few seconds, every hour, every day
Your data can be public or password protected

Now try it for yourself! Sign up for a free trial today!

August 7, 2015January 16, 2019

Display live data from Excel spreadsheets in your WordPress website or blog

ipushpull now lets you embed live, updating data from your desktop Excel spreadsheets in your WordPress website or blog! Whether you’ve a price list that you want to publish every morning, or finance data that changes every few seconds, we’ve made it incredibly easy to send this data directly from your desktop Excel spreadsheet to your site. You don’t need to save the Excel spreadsheet and upload it every time you make a change, and your website visitors don’t need to refresh the page to see updates. With ipushpull it’s automatic, in just a few easy steps.

Live Demo

The blog you’re reading is powered by WordPress, so it’s the ideal place for a demo. Here’s a simulated stock portfolio, updating every few seconds:

This portfolio is being updated by a desktop Excel spreadsheet running at ipushpull HQ down in the Silicon Basement. The data you’re looking at is updated every time the source sheet changes. The formatting and styles are being captured from the original Excel source, and this page also includes some links to other iPushPull pages, letting you drill down from the summary to the details. So you can build a hierarchy of live data pages as complex or simple as you like, using the tools that you already use, and publish them live in your website. There’s no development required. This is what we like to do at ipushpull – take the tools you love, like Excel and WordPress, and link them together to make difficult jobs simple.

Other Features

Make your data Public or keep it Private

The demonstration page displayed above is a public page, so anyone who visits your site will be able to see it. But you can also use ipushpull’s access control features to restrict access to your data, meaning that your site’s visitors will only be able to access the data by entering a password. Keep a price list private for priority customers, or publish individual pages for all your clients and embed them in your site with no development required on your side.

Display data from any application, not just Excel

If your data’s in Microsoft Excel, the ipushpull WordPress plugin now lets you get it onto your website. We’re also working on new integrations (watch this space for our Google Sheets add-in). But remember that ipushpull is an open platform and you can use our APIs to integrate it with any system or online service.

Not just WordPress

If you don’t use WordPress for your website you can still embed ipushpull pages in it. See this page in our Support Centre for details.

How to do it

The ipushpull WordPress plugin lets you embed pages in your site with a single line of code. For more details visit the ipushpull WordPress plugin page in the WordPress plugin directory. It includes full instructions about installing and using the plugin, but if you need further help please visit the ipushpull Support Centre or email support@ipushpull.com.

Start using ipushpull today by signing up for a free trial.

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015

Another day, another hack – using client-side encryption to protect your data online

The theft of extremely sensitive data at extra-marital affairs site Ashley Madison is just the latest in a series of online data thefts to hit the headlines. As each new case is reported, it reinforces the message that client-side (or end-to-end) encryption – encrypting your data before it leaves your computer or phone – is the best way to be sure that your data is safe online. This article looks at the threats and three ways you can protect your files, data and messages on the web.

Inside Jobs, Social Engineering and Weak Passwords

Ashley Madison claimed that it had received an award for its security measures but unfortunately it was not immune to the inside job – it appears that a company contractor with access to their database has stolen the personal data of millions of users, leaving them and the company open to blackmail and fraud.

Other widely reported hacks have been performed using social engineering. This is the practice of tricking the operators of web sites and services to reveal information or perform actions such as resetting passwords. Many social engineers are highly skilled at this kind of manipulation, but it’s often weak practices at the companies themselves that lead to security compromises.

But probably the most common cause of security breaches is still good old-fashioned password guessing. Too many people still use weak passwords, or the same password across multiple sites, so as soon as one of their sites is compromised all their accounts are at risk.

The best way to protect your data online is to encrypt it before it even gets there. That way, even if an attacker gets access to your account, they cannot decrypt it unless they have access to the keys and they reside on your computer or mobile phone. There’s no way to compromise your data without having access to one of your client devices.

Protecting your files online with SpiderOak and Tresorit

File Sync and Share services such as Dropbox and Google Drive are immensely popular because of their convenience and price. But they don’t encrypt your files before they leave your device – if an attacker gets access to your account at the cloud service they will have full access to all your files. High security alternatives such as Tresorit and SpiderOak are a much safer bet. Their client applications encrypt your files before they leave your computer and let you keep control of the encryption keys. By the time your files reach the cloud their content is unintelligible, and can only be decrypted on your computer or phone by you or someone you’ve authorised.

Protecting your live data online with iPushPull

We’ve built client-side encryption into iPushPull so you can share live data between Excel spreadsheets securely without any middle man being able to intercept it. This isn’t possible with Google Sheets or Excel Online which don’t support client side encryption. And because we’ve built encryption across our entire suite of applications, you can access and update your encrypted data on your mobile phone, in desktop Excel and using our upcoming Google Sheets plugin.

Instant Messaging – who can you trust?

The most popular business messaging services such as Skype do not support end-to-end encryption and are widely believed to have been compromised. In response, the number of end-to-end encrypted messaging services is increasing rapidly and includes established players such as BlackBerry Messenger Protected and more recent entrants such as the highly-respected Wickr. The EFF has produced a handy summary of the strengths and weaknesses of many of the players in the instant messaging market.

The cloud is a convenient place to store and share files, data and messages but your stuff isn’t always as safe as you might want it to be. However, with minimal extra effort you can add end-to-end encryption to stay in control and keep your data secure.

Want to securely share live data between your spreadsheets and the web? Sign up for a free trial of iPushPull today.

July 12, 2015July 16, 2015

iPushPull Update: New Dashboard plus improved navigation and editing

We’ve been busy improving the iPushPull user experience and now we’re ready to go public with the new updates! This release adds a new dashboard to our web app with quick access to support and the latest company news. We’ve also made it easier to navigate around your folders and pages and improved page editing on our desktop and mobile sites. We’ve added comprehensive help for each new iPushPull update to the iPushPull Support Site.

New Dashboard

Several customers have asked us if we could make it easier to access support, product update information and company news from within the web app. So we’ve added a new dashboard to the site – see the picture above. The dashboard features quick links to useful support information plus the latest company news and tweets. You can also customise the dashboard by adding shortcuts to your favourite pages. Click on the following links to find out more about the Desktop Dashboard and Mobile Dashboard.

The dashboard will be displayed each time you log in, unless you choose your default folder and page instead (see this link for instructions about setting defaults). You can also display the dashboard by clicking the Home button in the top left corner of the web app.

New Navigation Bar

Our new Navigation Bar groups links to the dashboard, your personal profile settings and our support pages together in a single place. On desktop you can find it on the top left of the screen, under the iPushPull logo – for full details click here. On mobile it’s displayed at the top of your Folder List and Page List screens – click here for details.

Improved Navigation between your Folders and Pages

We’ve made it easier to drill down into your pages and move back up to your folder list. This is particularly useful when you have access to more than one folder or when you’re using our mobile site. Details about the desktop site here and the mobile site here.

Easier Page Editing

We’ve reduced the number of steps you need to take when editing your pages, and simplified the edit menu without reducing functionality. The result is a more streamlined experience, particularly when you’re using the mobile app. For more details click here for the desktop site and here for mobile.

We hope you like these improvements as much as we do! If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at support@ipushpull.com.

June 23, 2015October 15, 2015

Enrich your live iPushPull pages by adding links

Link your iPushPull pages to each other, to external websites, and to phone, email and SMS apps

Have you added links to your iPushPull pages yet? You can add links between iPushPull pages and to external websites, and links that launch your phone, SMS or email applications directly from your live data pages.

Adding links between your iPushPull pages lets you build rich, deep and LIVE websites, and our Microsoft Excel Add-in lets you add them quickly and easily. Links let you structure your data exactly the way you want to – with index pages and high level summary reports connected to detailed breakdowns, allowing your colleagues and clients to drill down to exactly the level of information they need. None of this compromises security – each user can still only access just those pages you’ve granted them permission to see.

One of our financial markets customers uses the iPushPull mobile app to keep their risk manager up-to-date with the latest market moves. The summary page displays constantly updating headline information about each of their traders’ positions, risk and P&L. Each row links to an individual page showing detailed activity data for the particular trader, so the manager can dive in whenever he needs more information. Another customer has built a set of pages linking the latest stock levels in their warehouse to delivery schedules. In both cases our customers are pulling live data from external systems (trading and ERP, respectively) into desktop Microsoft Excel, and pushing it to iPushPull directly from their spreadsheets. They’re using iPushPull as a live Content Management System. Try doing that with Google Sheets!

Drill down into trading history from portfolio screen

We’ve embedded a simulation of a live stock portfolio being generated by an iPushPull-enabled spreadsheet below. Click on the underlined links to see the trading history for each stock, and click Back to return to the portfolio page.

To view this in our web app on desktop or mobile click here. Please note that we’ve made these pages public for demo purposes – if this was your portfolio they would be protected by iPushPull’s award-winning security and encryption!

Launch your Email, Phone and SMS apps direct from your pages

With iPushPull links you’re not limited to creating connections between iPushPull pages. You can add links to external websites, and create links which launch email, phone and SMS apps with the email addresses and numbers you’ve specified when they’re tapped or clicked. Build a shared directory page for your team, or create live data pages for your clients and let them contact you directly from the page with no fiddling around switching apps or looking for numbers.

Here’s one we prepared earlier, quickly and easily, within Microsoft Excel using our Add-in. Click on any of the links to see what happens:

To view this in our web app click here. It’s best experienced on a mobile phone or similar device with phone and SMS capability. We don’t recommend you try calling any of the numbers!

For detailed instructions how to create links in your iPushPull pages, read our excellent support pages:

Why not sign up for a free trial and try it for yourself?

May 19, 2015May 20, 2015

Link Excel spreadsheets so no more email attachments

If you scroll down your email inbox I’ll bet you’ll see a fair few paper clips, highlighting those emails that arrived complete with their own attachment. Let’s take a look at a few, shall we, and see what’s attached? Ah – here’s an MS Excel spreadsheet with those sales forecasts you were waiting for. And here’s the updated pricelist you were expecting from your supplier. And timesheets from your sales people out on the road. And…

Let’s open one of these emails. Done? Right – download that attachment. Then try to work out where it’s been downloaded to. Found it? OK, fire up Excel, open the sheet and scan through it to find the particular range of cells you’re actually interested in and finally copy them into your master sheet. Job done?

If you’re lucky that might be the end of your work. But perhaps you have to generate a company-wide sales report from separate sheets submitted by all your branch offices, or maybe you have to process time sheets from all your remote workers. As companies spread and more staff work remotely, more and more spreadsheets will be dropping into your inbox. And the alternatives to sharing this way are not much better.

You could try a shared sheet on a cloud drive like Dropbox instead. But do you really want everyone working on the same sheet? Should your New York office be able to see London’s figures? Has everyone updated their bit yet? Who’s got the file open now? Which version are we working on again?

There is a better way.

Link Excel Spreadsheets with iPushPull

iPushPull lets you link Excel spreadsheets, whether they’re in the same office or on opposite sides of the world. So every remote office or worker can update their own sheets independently without blocking anyone or accessing anyone else’s data. The instant they make their changes they’re pushed to iPushPull. And the moment the changes are pushed to iPushPull every linked sheet will be updated automatically – there’s no need to save or refresh anything.

Here’s a head office report that consolidates key figures from every branch office in a single place. Each row of the report is linked to a remote sheet and updates whenever the remote sheet is changed:

The Time Updated and Who Updated fields show when each remote site updated their data and who did it, so it’s easy to see who deserves a pat on the back and who needs a gentle nudge (hurry up, Eddy!). Each office can only access its own data so only you can see this big picture. And because you can view your live iPushPull data securely on your mobile phone, you can check it on your way into the office. So you’re ahead of the game.

iPushPull works with all versions of Excel from 2007 onwards and it’s easy to integrate it with your existing spreadsheets. You don’t have to change your business processes – just make them much faster and simpler.

So if you’d like fewer paper clips in your inbox in future, why not try iPushPull free today?

iPushPull – link Excel spreadsheets