My co-founder and I started Equals to build the data tool we always wished we had as part of the early Intercom team. We found no matter which new BI tool we adopted, we’d ultimately end up back in a spreadsheet. Yet, we’d then come back to the BI tool for easy access to live data.
So - Equals is a spreadsheet with live data. Equals has native connections to databases, data warehouses, and other data sources. You can write SQL directly in the spreadsheet to pull in data from your database, or you can write Python/Javascript to pull data from any API. We launched the core Equals product about a year ago.
Today we’re launching Dashboards. With Dashboards you can hook in multiple data sources at once and build charts and tables that auto-expand. As your data updates, so does your spreadsheet and dashboard. We believe this is the simplest and most flexible tool for founders to stay on top of their business.
We’re still super early and so would love to hear your feedback on the product.
I just gave it a go and am super impressed with the Salesforce connector, most of the tools I've tried are awful for SFDC (including data sync tools like airbyte etc)
I loaded in around 100k rows and performance was fantastic.
I think the only feature so far I haven't found is whether there is a way to join tables together in the app. With SFDC particularly it doesn't seem to have an option to write the SOQL query directly, and I can't access relationships with the field builder, so I have no easy way to do a client side join (apart from a ton of VLOOKUPs which is not ideal)
I do love how calculated columns stay even after I re-query the source data, that and the auto-expanding are killer features.
Super exciting product, very polished, I can't wait to see where it goes.
PS. $18/mo for the pro version with scheduled queries is an absolute steal
Looks interesting, but if I cannot self-host it on my company's internal cloud, I can't use it. I suspect there are similar requirements for a lot of potential enterprise clients. If self-hosting is part of the Enterprise pricing plan, you should mention that on the page.
Are these dashboards able to be used with any UI elements to filter down certain criteria? Say your dashboard chart shows all widgets, but you want to see certain widgets rather than all. I'd love to enable my team, who would ideally be viewers, to have a dropdown selection or something similar, to then filter the chart by what they need to see.
One of the Tableau features I like is the ability to export the data that was used to calculate the dashboard. Plus with the filtering capabilities it allows my team to get out what they might need to then use as needed. Anything like that available in Equals? I really dig the Hubspot integration because Hubspot integration with Tableau is a real pain in the ass.
FWIW I'm a product designer and I try onboarding for dozens of different products every month to make sure I'm aware of the latest and greatest patterns. I love your approach to self-serve onboarding for connectors.
Cool idea, congrats! Have you run into any performance issues with "Very Large" spreadsheets
(>1M rows) given that this is running in the browser? Or can JS power something like that these days?
Separately how does the SQL querying work? Do you just pass the query along on the connection to an external database or are you running a query engine on the data that's available to the app?
Today we have a cap of 200k rows per sheet – this is a level where we feel performance is acceptable. We actually just doubled the limit from 100k and we have a plan to get to 1M rows by EOY. Definitely some meaty performance work here but it's tractable.
For SQL querying, you set up a connection to your SQL database in Equals and then we pass queries to your database. Query results are copied into the spreadsheet where you can use full spreadsheet formulas, pivots, etc. against it.
I'd be interested in that product if I can figure out how to bring the data from a self-hosted MSSQL database into it somehow, and refresh it regularly without too much trouble. Perhaps I could whitelist IP addresses in our firewall to allow the site to connect to the database.
Another problem is about sharing the dashboard; we are a Ms365 business. Could we re-use those logins to log into shared Dashboards? I'm mostly concerned about the ease of viewing those Dashboards from the end-users' POV (our internal employees).
Yep we easily connect to MSSQL and always from a static IP, so you should be able to whitelist. Our team will be happy to help if you run into any trouble.
Unfortunately we don't support signing in with MS365 accounts. But we do allow you to turn on "auto-join from my domain" so anyone with a verified email at your domain can automatically join your Equals account.
Solutions that are good for embedding reports have some specifics; say, usually a self-hosted version / white labeling are must-have.
Shameless plug here: take a look at our https://www.seektable.com, especially if you're interested in pivot tables (and affordable pricing, of course!).
Appreciate the kind words. Unfortunately we're unlikely to offer a white label solution, we're pretty focused on building for end users. You could check out our import scripts which let people build custom integrations with python/js: https://equals.app/integrations/import-scripts/.
- If you have summary tables with formulas we'll auto-extend those tables as we see new periods in your data. e.g. If you have "revenue by month" calculated using SUMIFs on top of charge data and we see a new month, we'll copy your formulas down/across.
- Any charts based off those tables will also update. Sheets doesn't do either of these things.
- Finally, people who've switched from Sheets have found our query UX to have much tighter iteration loops by being more deeply integrated into the product.
Are we able to enrich data via custom endpoints? Imagine a list of leads with a website column, can I hit my own endpoint for each row to fetch/scrape the email address from it? And if so, are there any caching options?
Same with scraping data from LinkedIn or anywhere, really.
You could use an import script (https://equals.app/integrations/import-scripts/) to pull data from a custom API and enrich at the same time. Import scripts let you run any arbitrary code and have the result added to a spreadsheet.
First, we have a generous free tier. The free tier includes all but two features, 3 editors, and unlimited viewers.
Beyond that, the main difference is that Equals is a full-featured spreadsheet. You have full Excel/Sheets compatible formulas, pivot tables, formatting, etc. Along with connections to all SQL databases and SaaS tools like Salesforce and Hubspot.
Today's launch adds the ability to build auto-updating dashboards on top of our spreadsheet – but, for example, should you want to do a deep dive on an anomaly on a dashboard, you can do that right in the same tool. Something that gets tricky after a certain point of complexity in tools like data studio.
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
My co-founder and I started Equals to build the data tool we always wished we had as part of the early Intercom team. We found no matter which new BI tool we adopted, we’d ultimately end up back in a spreadsheet. Yet, we’d then come back to the BI tool for easy access to live data.
So - Equals is a spreadsheet with live data. Equals has native connections to databases, data warehouses, and other data sources. You can write SQL directly in the spreadsheet to pull in data from your database, or you can write Python/Javascript to pull data from any API. We launched the core Equals product about a year ago.
Today we’re launching Dashboards. With Dashboards you can hook in multiple data sources at once and build charts and tables that auto-expand. As your data updates, so does your spreadsheet and dashboard. We believe this is the simplest and most flexible tool for founders to stay on top of their business.
We’re still super early and so would love to hear your feedback on the product.
Ben
[+] [-] mpeg|3 years ago|reply
I loaded in around 100k rows and performance was fantastic.
I think the only feature so far I haven't found is whether there is a way to join tables together in the app. With SFDC particularly it doesn't seem to have an option to write the SOQL query directly, and I can't access relationships with the field builder, so I have no easy way to do a client side join (apart from a ton of VLOOKUPs which is not ideal)
I do love how calculated columns stay even after I re-query the source data, that and the auto-expanding are killer features.
Super exciting product, very polished, I can't wait to see where it goes.
PS. $18/mo for the pro version with scheduled queries is an absolute steal
[+] [-] nrjames|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] selykg|3 years ago|reply
Are these dashboards able to be used with any UI elements to filter down certain criteria? Say your dashboard chart shows all widgets, but you want to see certain widgets rather than all. I'd love to enable my team, who would ideally be viewers, to have a dropdown selection or something similar, to then filter the chart by what they need to see.
One of the Tableau features I like is the ability to export the data that was used to calculate the dashboard. Plus with the filtering capabilities it allows my team to get out what they might need to then use as needed. Anything like that available in Equals? I really dig the Hubspot integration because Hubspot integration with Tableau is a real pain in the ass.
[+] [-] kposehn|3 years ago|reply
1. I want to add GA as a datasource but I'm stuck on unique page views and can't seem to change anything outside of the date range
2. The help center article on GA has a broken link: https://help.equals.app/en/articles/6584898-add-a-google-ana...
3. The UX is a bit unclear and the upgrade path isn't straightforwardly accessible for a free user in the workflow.
I'm glad you launched and I'm looking forward to using it. Hit me up if you need more feedback.
[+] [-] cscheueuer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] airstrike|3 years ago|reply
Separately how does the SQL querying work? Do you just pass the query along on the connection to an external database or are you running a query engine on the data that's available to the app?
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
Today we have a cap of 200k rows per sheet – this is a level where we feel performance is acceptable. We actually just doubled the limit from 100k and we have a plan to get to 1M rows by EOY. Definitely some meaty performance work here but it's tractable.
For SQL querying, you set up a connection to your SQL database in Equals and then we pass queries to your database. Query results are copied into the spreadsheet where you can use full spreadsheet formulas, pivots, etc. against it.
[+] [-] deburo|3 years ago|reply
I'd be interested in that product if I can figure out how to bring the data from a self-hosted MSSQL database into it somehow, and refresh it regularly without too much trouble. Perhaps I could whitelist IP addresses in our firewall to allow the site to connect to the database.
Another problem is about sharing the dashboard; we are a Ms365 business. Could we re-use those logins to log into shared Dashboards? I'm mostly concerned about the ease of viewing those Dashboards from the end-users' POV (our internal employees).
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
Unfortunately we don't support signing in with MS365 accounts. But we do allow you to turn on "auto-join from my domain" so anyone with a verified email at your domain can automatically join your Equals account.
[+] [-] msencenb|3 years ago|reply
One of my big features this quarter is to get deep into dashboarding/reporting for my own saas and I am incredibly impressed with your UI/UX.
[+] [-] seektable|3 years ago|reply
Shameless plug here: take a look at our https://www.seektable.com, especially if you're interested in pivot tables (and affordable pricing, of course!).
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] user3939382|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nokicky|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
Few differences I'd call out:
- If you have summary tables with formulas we'll auto-extend those tables as we see new periods in your data. e.g. If you have "revenue by month" calculated using SUMIFs on top of charge data and we see a new month, we'll copy your formulas down/across.
- Any charts based off those tables will also update. Sheets doesn't do either of these things.
- Finally, people who've switched from Sheets have found our query UX to have much tighter iteration loops by being more deeply integrated into the product.
[+] [-] topicseed|3 years ago|reply
Same with scraping data from LinkedIn or anywhere, really.
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hisyam|3 years ago|reply
I'm using Chrome 110.0.5481.100 (Official Build) (x86_64) and macOS 10.15.7
[+] [-] dominicwhyte|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayshan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benmcredmond|3 years ago|reply
First, we have a generous free tier. The free tier includes all but two features, 3 editors, and unlimited viewers.
Beyond that, the main difference is that Equals is a full-featured spreadsheet. You have full Excel/Sheets compatible formulas, pivot tables, formatting, etc. Along with connections to all SQL databases and SaaS tools like Salesforce and Hubspot.
Today's launch adds the ability to build auto-updating dashboards on top of our spreadsheet – but, for example, should you want to do a deep dive on an anomaly on a dashboard, you can do that right in the same tool. Something that gets tricky after a certain point of complexity in tools like data studio.
[+] [-] howmayiannoyyou|3 years ago|reply
This is working beautifully for BI applications in my company within our existing GSuite environments.
[+] [-] mpeg|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] realworldperson|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] adawg4|3 years ago|reply