Data
Databases and lightweight BI
XCom helps teams stop living in fragile spreadsheets: structured storage, sensible schemas, and reports people will actually open. Scope stays narrow enough to ship and small enough to maintain.
Good fits
- Operational data trapped in email threads and shared sheets
- A first dashboard that answers the same weekly questions
- Connecting a website or app to a clean data store
- A spreadsheet that has outgrown itself and now breaks regularly
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
Spreadsheets are excellent tools and most businesses should keep using them. The trouble starts at a predictable point: when several people edit the same file, when one tab feeds another through formulas nobody remembers writing, or when a single sort operation can silently scramble every row.
If you have a file that only one person is allowed to touch, or a monthly ritual of repairing something that broke, that is the signal. The goal is not to eliminate spreadsheets. It is to move the system of record somewhere safer and let people keep using familiar tools to read it.
How we approach it
We start from the questions you need answered, not from the technology. That determines what has to be stored, how it relates, and what can be left alone.
The first version stays deliberately small: one workflow, modeled properly, in daily use. A data project that tries to capture everything at once tends to launch late and get abandoned, because nobody can validate a system that models work they do not recognize.
Reporting people actually open
A dashboard nobody looks at is a failed project regardless of how much data it contains. Useful reporting answers a specific recurring question and makes the answer obvious at a glance.
We would rather ship four numbers that drive a decision than forty charts that get admired once and never revisited.
Common questions
- Do we need to abandon our spreadsheets?
- No. The aim is to move the system of record somewhere reliable. People often keep reading and analyzing in spreadsheets, just without risking the underlying data.
- What database do you use?
- It depends on the workload and where the data needs to live. We recommend a fit and explain the tradeoff rather than defaulting to one product for every project.
- How small can a first version be?
- Small enough to be in real use within weeks and cover one workflow properly. Starting narrow is how these projects avoid becoming a system nobody adopts.