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And this could be the true Excel killer. If we figure out a paradigm for nested structures (or simple sql relationships really) that is as easy to work with as Excel we would have a very strong case for moving users away from spreadsheets. Every time data is interrelated in Excel it becomes a hot, very manual, mess.


Excel allows creating primary/foreign key relationships between tables using the Data tab, but you can only use these relationships to produce pivot tables, not in normal formulas.


Admittedly not great, but you can complete that join, output it as a table, and then apply formulas as desired if you use Power Query.

Power Query solves many cases where a macro was previously required, but relatively few people are aware of it.


But buy the time you get to understand how to do things like this in Excel, why not just use the proper tool for the job - a database.

(I haven't used it in many years but MS Access was a pretty efficient way to get an application together).




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