Modern/Managed Data Stack - WIIFM???

In our last edition , we discussed what Modern Data Stack (MDS) means for a data-driven business. A typical real estate business user would ask:

- We don't do deals often, all we have is only 5 properties, and all we use for number crunching is Excel. What should I care about MDS? What's in it for me?

Let's think about where you get data for your number crunching. Do you personally have one or more sources of data? The simple rule is that if you're getting the data you need from more than one place, it's a good time to build a decent data infrastructure. Why business people need to get involved in this process? Well, because no software has been able to really replace the most popular tool in our industry:

Excel

I know it's a beat-up topic, but, let's talk about spreadsheets yet one more time. The creator of VisiCalc, the original spreadsheet software, Dan Bricklin, said that when the app was published and gained popularity...

Some people used to glue calculators to the side of their keyboards, before they figured out that the spreadsheet wasn’t only a way to organize numbers but it also did calculations.

Today, [Ctrl + ~] (a hotkey combo that unveils the content of spreadsheet cells to tell formulas from input values) is still very popular, because spreadsheets prevent you from making addition and subtraction errors but you are fully responsible for the logic.

With all the power of spreadsheets, they have some clear limitations for our industry:

1. Spreadsheets are for Desktops. Mobile /tablet apps? Forget it, without a keyboard (with 'Esc' and 'Del' buttons) and a mouse, it's hell!
2. Spreadsheets are good for a solo intensive analysis job. Collaboration is easy nowadays (with Office 365 and Google Sheets), but where is the communication? Emails? Messengers? Cell comments?

Professional software like asset and property management systems tried to solve these limitations, and they partially did. But despite the dashboards and the collaborative environment, the way professionals use the data from those systems is still by exporting it into a spreadsheet file.

Here's the good news. If you are using Excel files to analyze data for business decisions, you already built a prototype of the data infrastructure. What am I talking about?

External links in Excel and the IMPORTRANGE function in Google Sheets

No doubt, even if you have "only" 5 properties under management, you have your opex, capex, technical information, tenancy schedules, financials and tax figures scattered across multiple files and systems. When you tie several data sources together (even if it's spreadsheets with external links), it's the basic building block of the data infrastructure.

Spreadsheets as a part of MDS

So, we concluded that the MDS helps you make information accessible and operational: once you set up the process of data flow under your own control, you will benefit from it progressively in the long term. MDS does not necessarily mean buying an expensive stack of tools. There are choices that are relatively simple, affordable and offer plenty of flexibility for users with little or even no IT knowledge.

Refusing to use MDS is similar to gluing calculators to keyboards instead of using built-in spreadsheet calculations.

Making spreadsheets a part of your MDS can be a good idea. After all, spreadsheets are great data processors and have rich visualization functionality, but they are not good at storing multi-dimensional data with dependencies and live updates. Therefore, connecting your property management and asset management software to your Excel for live data feed can be a practical win-win solution.

Try this:

Step 1: Open Google Sheets

Step 2: In cell A1, type:

=IMPORTDATA("https://builtapi.com/demo/rent-roll.csv")        

Step 3: Press 'Allow access' when prompted (yes, you can trust this source!) Voila!

Now, this is a static demo file, but if it was a live data feed connected to a property management system, you could use it as a part of your workbook without the need to export & import data.

Think about it ??

Next time, we'll talk about data formats and models, and discuss if...

We need a common data model that can normalize all the data from all the systems.

Stay tuned, and don't forget to subscribe, if you haven't yet. Thanks for reading!