I don’t know if this is right forum for this question. I have one spreadsheet and need to create reports for different people from the data. I can hide columns and print the data I need, but each time I update the spreadsheet, I have to change which columns are hidden based on the report. I wondered if I should try to create a database and generate reports somehow from there. I was wondering if someone would have some suggestions? I am attaching the spreadsheet. I need one report that shows the basic vendor contact info (name, phone, email), another that shows the name, tables, craft, another that shows the name, tables, special requirements and desired location, another that shows Registration, Confirmation and paid. There may be more. I appreciate any help you can give.C:\fakepath\Vendor List2021ConfirmSent.ods
If you feel the force to move the thing to a DataBase, and to create the reports by standard DB means, this should be the recommendable way,
If you only feel sufficiently familiar with spreadsheets, you should regard some general advice:
-1- Keep your data in (“somehow”) normalized tables - probably in a single one.
-2- Don’t work with this (these) table(s) except for the maintenance of the data.
-3- If you ned a selection (of rows) you may create it with a filter using the option to output (“copy”) the data to a different sheet.
-4- If you need calculations for specialized reports, create specialized sheets where the original data are introduced by references.
-5- If you need/want prettyprint formats, never format the data sheet. Always do such things exclusively in sheets prepared for the purpose.
-6- It’s simple to create specialized sheets permamently not mirroring some columns by simply not referencing them.
But:
Depending on the size of your datasets , and on the variability concerning your selections/reports, you may need lots of formula-filled columns/cells in lots of sheets, and the .ods will grow and grow.
This is because the paradigm of spreadsheets is the “programming by formulas”, which can’t efficiently perform tasks which require sequential operations by their nature.
DataBases keep “dead data”, and do everything else by sequential operations on them. This way a single SQL statement can replace many thousands of formula-filled cells in many cases.
In addition DB should support efficient sorting and the like which sheet formulas can’t do.
There are a few tools in spreadsheets for interactive use to reduce this problem, but to convert them to automated use makes programming unavoidable…
And in addition
there are the many problem related to data safety (backupping e.g.), security (rights management e.g.), integrity … Which are well supported by DB, but require lots of care if data are kept in sheets.