You can save the data in an online spreadsheet by opening it as a Real-time Sync session. All shared sessions are persistent and the data from the last edit is always there when you open the same session again.
When you use a spreadsheet for calculations, you often want to retain the data from the last time you used the spreadsheet. This is easy using Excel’s Save command, which saves the contents of the spreadsheet to a hard drive or any other type of persistent data storage. If the spreadsheet is saved on a server, many users can access the same spreadsheet and their joint modifications to the spreadsheet are continuously updated on the server.
But how to you keep data in a spreadsheet that has been converted to a web page? Every time your web browser fetches the web page from the web server, it gets the same content – the cell values from when the web page was created. You can change the calculations and get new results, but the next time you open the same web page you start over with the same initial values.
SpreadsheetConverter provides a simple but genial solution to the problem. When you enable Real-time Sync for a spreadsheet, all its contents become persistent. Every time you open a spreadsheet via Real-time Sync, you get its most recent cell values. This is because Real-time Sync lets two or more people to share a spreadsheet, and these sharing sessions have no limit in time. Even if all users disconnect from a sharing session, Real-time sync still preserves the most recent contents until the next time someone opens the same sharing session again.
It’s time to introduce you to a little trick. The only difference between a standard, unique spreadsheet link and a shared link is the “k” parameter in the link, which is used to provide the unique “key” for the Real-time Sync collaboration session. So if the link to your calculator looks like this:
http://www.example.com/budget/budget.htm
you can create a saved, persistent version just by adding a “k” parameter at the end of the link, like this:
http://www.example.com/budget/budget.htm?k=northwest
In this example, we are using the word “northwest” as the key to, or session name, for our Real-time sync session. The contents of the “budget” spreadsheet are now saved to disk in the online Real-time Sync server. Any change you make to the spreadsheet when opened with this particular key will automatically be retained until you (or someone else) open the same session again, i.e. using the same “k” parameter.
Real-time Sync enables you to collaborate with other people on a spreadsheet, but it also allows you to collaborate with yourself, from one occasion to another. Any online spreadsheet created with SpreadsheetConverter can be made persistent just by adding a session name at the end of the link. There’s no Save button to press, everything is saved while you work.
There is a tutorial for a persistent Sign-up form.
