Seeking Real-World ROI: "Table Filter, Charts & Spreadsheets" vs. using M365/Excel

[MidnightExe]

Hi Community,

We are currently evaluating the "Table Filter, Charts & Spreadsheets" app (by Stiltsoft) for our Confluence Data Center instance.

The quesiton would be:

"Why should we use this app when we already have a full M365 license, and Excel can create all the pivot tables and charts we need?"

I am now looking for real-world feedback to support this analysis:

1. Is this "no media break" / "single source of truth" argument the main reason you use this app?

2. What are your use cases that truly demonstrate the app's value over just using Excel?

3. How did you justify the cost internally against the "it's already in Excel" argument? What ROI have you seen?

Any insights or examples would be incredibly helpful for my report.

Thanks a lot!

[Jayesh Raghuvanshi]

@MidnightExe 

Use the app when you want live, interactive reports directly on Confluence Data Center pages (filters, pivots, charts, SQL-like joins, and in-page spreadsheets) so users consume and manipulate data without leaving Confluence or juggling Excel files/attachments. This “no media break” approach plus reusable table ranges and cross-page aggregation are the differentiators Excel alone can’t deliver inside Confluence pages

• Reasons: On-page filters/pivots/charts in view mode with dedicated macros, avoiding exports and re-uploads
• Reasons: Combine/merge tables and macro outputs into one report, including SQL-style transformations via the app’s toolkit
• Reasons: Reuse table/spreadsheet ranges across pages for a single source of truth in DC

Use Case

• Filter large Page Properties/portfolio tables live so each audience slices data without duplicate page
• Join Jira Issues output with manual cost/capacity tables for unified dashboards and charts in-page
• Executive dashboards with multiple pivots/charts auto-updating from a single source table

ROI

• Less context switching and faster reporting cycles by keeping analysis in Confluence
• Fewer duplicates and stale attachments thanks to cross-page reuse and live view
• Strong “single source of truth” for governance and adoption on Data Center

Thanks

Jayesh R

[Philip Feldmann - appanvil]

Hi @MidnightExe 

Great question! Apps like Table Filter don't exactly compete with Microsoft's Excel. They don't try to replace your spreadsheet. Their goal is to work alongside Confluence and integrate deeply with the Confluence features you've come to love. 

If you have table data within Confluence and try to do reporting or aggregation, a Marketplace Table app can help you gain insights without duplicating your source of truth.

That said, you don't necessarily need to spend money to enhance your Confluence tables. There are free alternatives, such as our app Aura Table Filter. Not only is the app free, it also "runs on Atlassian", meaning that all your data stays securely inside of the Atlassian ecosystem.

Best,

Philip

[MidnightExe]

Hello @Philip Feldmann - appanvil as I can see your app is only compatible with Confluence Cloud, thats not what we are looking for. We are looking for a Data Center Solution in this topic as I mentioned in my post.

[Marc - Devoteam]

Hi @MidnightExe 

In my opinion it's more on where is your data, is it in Confluence, there could be a use to ise table dat or combine data from multiple tables.

Yes you have excel, but then you would 1st need to get the data out of Confluence and then make the pivots and charts in excel, how do you then provide the information back to Confluence do you set a link to an excel file?

How will this help users, referring to information along side development or documentation?

There are also other option in relation to 3rd party apps, you could try others to see if they provide you with more then maybe table and charts does?

For me it's a business decision to make along side your WoW, what is you source of truth in relation to the data and the way people work.