Abstract: The present invention generally relates to new and improved embodiments of methods and systems for capturing and providing arbitrarily rich data to be stored or manipulated within a spreadsheet. In one embodiment of the present invention, a method for creating spreadsheet metadata comprises receiving an item in a spreadsheet, receiving item metadata about the item, and associating the item metadata with the item to create spreadsheet metadata.

Abstract: Tools and techniques for providing multi-client collaboration to access and update structured data elements are disclosed. Client systems may present user interfaces that provide libraries of published data elements that are available for collaboration. The clients may request selected data elements, while referencing unique identifiers associated with the selected data elements. Those clients that publish data elements for collaboration by others may present user interfaces that provide representations of candidate structured data elements, and receive selections of those data elements chosen for publication. The publishing clients may then send the selected data elements for publication. The client systems may interact with servers or collaboration services, which may receive structured data elements that the clients have published for access by others.

Abstract: A method, system, and apparatus for discovering and connecting to data sources are provided. A system is provided that includes a server computer operative to maintain a centrally managed repository of data connection definitions. A client computer is also provided including an application program capable of consuming data from a data source. When a request is received by the application to connect to a data source, a list of available sources is retrieved from the server computer. If one of the data sources in the list is selected, a data connection file is retrieved and utilized to connect to the data source. If a report is opened by the application that includes a reference to a data source, the repository is utilized to confirm the connection to the data source.

Abstract: Techniques for collaborating on a spreadsheet file by client computers in real time are disclosed herein. In particular, a revision manager module is preferably provided with a host machine which receives updates from the client computers, processes such updates, and then applies them to the spreadsheet file. Additionally, a technique is described for handling updates sent to the revision manager by clients simultaneously or near simultaneously. In this case, the revision manager determines whether the updates to the spreadsheet file are transformable or able to be merged. If so, the updates are combined into the spreadsheet file and applied thereto. If the updates are not transformable, the revision manager confirms that all clients have received all previous updates before applying the non-transformable update to the spreadsheet file.

Abstract: Techniques for performing a process during a real time collaboration by multiple users or clients on a spreadsheet file are disclosed herein which may permit calculations to be performed locally by at least one of the clients. By doing so, increases in performance are realized since only data updates need to be provided to the host machine. As such, a determination is preferably made whether calculations performed locally can result in different data. If conflicting data is a possibility, then the calculations for the spreadsheet file will usually be performed remotely by a host machine. If not, then each client capable of doing so will perform the calculations locally and then provide only the updated data to the host machine. The determination of whether to perform the calculations locally or not may also be made dynamically, such as when one or more new formulas are added to the spreadsheet file.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a new type of structured name within a spreadsheet program that allows users to refer to tables, columns of data within tables, headers of tables, totals from tables, PivotTables®, and portions of PivotTable® data by the data's headers. Embodiments of the present invention comprise a method for referring to a set of data that comprises receiving one or more semantic designations, wherein the one or more semantic designations name a set of context information that describes one or more items of data in a data structure, automatically creating a structural reference, and associating the context information with the structural reference.