Streamlining Data Access with Excel Integration
FreightWaves built a complex web application system to allow it’s customer to analyze and understand their data. Hundreds of their customers use that system to export data and import in into Excel for the individual needs. FreightWaves sought to streamline that process by giving their many customers direct access to their data from their API endpoint with a simple but familiar format of using built in formulas in Excel.
The Challenges
API Technical Knowledge
Customer Ease of Use
Solution Deployment
Streamlined Data Access
The toolbar gives the customer the power of the API endpoint with having the knowledge of API usages.
Easy to Use Formulas
Built-in formulas make it easy for Freightwaves customers to integrate the data into their existing reports and dashboards.
New Revenue Stream
By introducing an additional product for data access, FreightWaves has created a new revenue stream while also expanding its offerings..
"Most of our supply chain data customers use our web interface, but our largest customers prefer connecting to our API to integrate our data into their operations, valuing our service highly. To help our small and mid- size customers use our data in their daily operations, we collaborated with Intellivega to create an Excel add-in. This add-in allows savvy spreadsheet users to pull our data into their workbooks using custom functions. Customers have been thrilled, and we've successfully upsold several UI-only customers to our API through the Excel add-in. Working with Intellivega was a breeze—they built the tool, helped us get it added to the Microsoft Store, and made testing and minor changes easy. This project promises a very high ROI for our company."
Conclusion
Recognizing the need to make this process more efficient, FreightWaves aimed to simplify the workflow. FreightWaves engaged Intellivega to develop an Excel Toolbar that gives their customers direct access to their data through an API endpoint. This enhancement allowed customers to interact with their data in a more streamlined manner, using the interface of Excel's built-in formulas. By integrating the API, customers could now bypass the manual steps of exporting and importing data, thus saving time and reducing potential errors. This approach not only improved the user experience but also enabled customers to leverage their data more effectively within the Excel environment. This solution was published to the Office 365 Market Place making it easily accessible to FreightWaves customers.