Brief
Remove Duplicates is an add-on I developed for the Google Sheets platform. I aimed to design an add-on that would clean data, faster, easier and more securely than what was on the market. Speed was paramount due to the frequency and volume of data that would be getting processed.
Solution
To tick all the boxes outlaid in the brief required the following constraints:
- Secure: No data shall ever leave the spreadsheet.
- Correct: Results that can be trusted.
- Fast: Faster than the competition given the same task
- Simplicity: Start cleaning data within seconds of the add-on opening
With these in mind, the add-on was designed from the foundation up, to perform all processing on Google’s server. In addition abiding by the concept of least privilege by only asking for permissions the add-on needed to function, ensures the add-on has the least access possible.
100s of tests were performed against a multitude of data types from simple strings, dates, JSON, unicode and to cover all the varying use case, types you wouldn’t usually find in a spreadsheet to ensure cleaning operations yielded results that were correct.
To achieve blazing search speeds, careful attention was given to the design of the core search algorithms. Post optimisation, on average given a sheet containing 50k rows the add-on achieved a search time complexity with a worst case of O(n log n).
With users at the heart of my design decisions, I had to develop a UI that provided a fast feedback loop, didn’t get in your way and allowed firing off searches quickly and from any sheet. This was achieved by side-loading the add-on into the spreadsheet were it would then stay open for as long as needed. This is vastly superior to a floating modal, which ends up obscuring your view of the data, reduced feedback loop and requires constantly opening and closing the add-on on each use.
Outcome
Since launch the add-on has blown away any expectation I had, being rated #1 on the G Suite marketplace in its category, hitting 60,000+ users worldwide and collectively generating north of 1 million+ searches.
Customers range from SMEs, universities, charities and the likes of Netflix, Square, Zoom, and Google, all trusting this add-on daily to process their critical data.
© EXPAND9.