Introduction to Excel Online integration
Ally’s Excel Online integration allows you to update your OKR progress automatically depending on the value of specific cells of Excel Sheets. Let’s say you use Excel Online to keep tabs on the revenue generated by the Sales team, and you have an objective in Ally.io for achieving $3M ARR for a quarter. When you link this objective to the corresponding Sheet in Excel Online, the status of your OKR will be updated automatically as the cell value changes. You can save yourself from the hassle of switching back and forth between your sheets and Ally.io to update the progress. Ally.io will automatically sync the values for you and chart your progress toward the goal, thus saving time while keeping your OKRs current.
Enabling the Excel Online integration
Admins can enable this integration, and here’s how it can be done:
From the sidebar, click on Admin > select the Integrations tab.
Against Excel Online, you will have an option to Enable the integration. If a connection has been made previously or if the integration has been enabled already, you will have the option to Manage the enabled integration.
This integration can also be disabled from the same section by clicking on Change, and choosing Disable integration from the dropdown.
Configuring the Excel Online connection
After enabling the integration, the first step is to configure an Excel Online connection.
Select New Connection, and sign into your Excel account.
Provide a name for the connection.
It is optional to share this connection with other users in the organization. Click on Next to get up and running with this integration. You can edit the saved connection at any time.
Ally.io allows you to connect with multiple Excel sheets. Select New Connection to fetch data from another sheet. You can differentiate these connections using names, and the names will be displayed to other users when they link their OKRs with Excel Online data.
Connecting the Excel Online connection to an OKR
Once you have configured the connection, the next step is to start linking OKRs to the Excel sheets.
While creating or editing an OKR, click on Connect data source to auto-update progress. From the drop down menu, select Excel Online.
If you have already created a connection, or if your administrator has shared a connection with you, that connection will be selected automatically. Ally.io will prompt you to create a new connection only if there are no connections created or shared.
Choose the method using which you want to measure the progress — percent complete or KPI (success metric). If you are choosing KPI, provide a metric, starting value, and target value.
Select a connection, and choose a Workbook. As soon as you choose the Workbook, the associated Sheets will be displayed in the Sheet dropdown menu. Select a Sheet.
To locate the cell accurately, furnish the Column and the Row Number.
The progress will be calculated based on the number present in the chosen cell (if you have chosen KPI metric to track progress), or will be calculated based on the percentage accomplished (if you have chosen percent complete to track progress).
Click Next > Save.
Note: The sync will happen once every hour. If you want to trigger the sync manually, click on the Excel Online icon next to the progress bar of the objective, and click on the sync icon.
You have successfully linked your objective to a Sheet in Excel Online to track the cell value, and update the status of the corresponding OKR automatically.
The colors of the progress bar indicated the status of the objective.
If the progress is 0 - 25% less than the expected progress at any given point in time, the OKR status is Behind, and the progress bar color will be Orange.
If the progress is over 25% less than the expected progress at any given point in time, the OKR status is At Risk, and the progress bar color will be Red.
To learn more about Ally’s other integrations, please visit our Integrations page.