Row Zero is a spreadsheet application built for big data and security. Row Zero spreadsheets are fast, can process billion row datasets, and connect live to cloud data sources.

Whis is data governance?

Data governance is the collection of policies and processes that organizations implement to manage and protect data and ensure compliance with data security and privacy laws.

What is spreadsheet governance?

Spreadsheet governance is the implementation of data governance principles across spreadsheet usage in your organization. This includes setting data access controls and establishing policies and processes that ensure data within spreadsheets is accurate, consistent, and secure across your organization.

What are the security risks of Excel and Google Sheets?

Excel and Google Sheets have maximum data limits of ~1 million rows. To open big files, users may seek unsecure workarounds to split CSV files or open large file formats. This includes uploading enterprise data files to unauthorized websites or downloading third party software. Also CSV and Excel files can be a security risk when they are downloaded or saved on an employee's local computer. Once there, files can be copied or sent anywhere, depending on the security settings of the local machine.

10 Ways Row Zero Improves Data Governance in Spreadsheets

Row Zero is a next-gen spreadsheet built for big data and enterprise data security. With Row Zero, you can ensure good data governance across your full data stack from data source to spreadsheet and back. Your data never leaves the cloud and never passes through 3rd party connectors or middleware.

Here are 10 ways Row Zero improves spreadsheet governance. Skip to a specific section or continue for full list:

Keep your data in the cloud
Streamline your data stack and ensure data integrity
Eliminate workarounds for big datasets or file formats
Make the "source of truth" easy to access
Enable single-sign on (SSO) for your spreadsheets
Set data access controls + spreadsheet and row level security
Enforce data residency
Ensure SOC2 and HIPAA compliant spreadsheets
Shrink the size of your tech stack
Reduce ad hoc data requests

1 - Keep your data in the cloud

Row Zero is a cloud-based spreadsheet that connects directly to your cloud data sources like Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, Amazon S3, etc. With Row Zero, you can eliminate locally stored Excel files and CSV exports with sensitive data from your org. Row Zero also lets data teams disable data export across users. No more ungoverned downloads or untraceable email attachments.

2 - Streamline your data stack and ensure data integrity

Row Zero spreadsheets connect directly to your data sources and are the world's fastest and most powerful spreadsheets. Your teams can easily import massive, billion row datasets or pull multiple database tables into a spreadsheet and do all of their spreadsheet work like pivot tables, graphs, XLOOKUP, SUMIF, etc. Teams can also write-back to your data warehouse to create a new table, letting teams seamlessly analyze and transform big datasets connected to your "source of truth" data. connected table

Data teams can also use our simple SQL editor to build shared queries and provide refresh permissions (without revealing credentials) so business teams and non-technical users can easily work with live, connected data. With connected tables, source data cannot be overwritten and when the data refreshes, it automatically updates both the source data and everything built on top of it including pivot tables, charts, and formulas. No more automated “report” emails with CSV attachments.

By simplifying your data flow, Row Zero makes the secure option the easy option and lets you set up an environment where you can disable exports from all of your sensitive data stores like Salesforce, Netsuite, etc.

3 - Eliminate workarounds for big datasets or file formats

Many of the security risks with Excel and Google Sheets exist because of their data size limits. Excel has a row limit of 1,048,576 rows. Similar to Excel, Google Sheets has a 10 million cell limit. In practice, Google Sheets and Excel slow down or crash well before these limits. Excel and Google Sheets also do not natively support common big data file formats like parquet and compressed formats like .gz files. excel limit

This all leads to a wide range of workarounds. To open big files, users often have to split their datasets into smaller subsets, which invites a range of potential errors and integrity issues, or they go to a random website that opens or splits large CSVs and upload your enterprise data. Similarly, to open parquet files or unzip .gz files, employees go to random file reader websites or download 3rd party software. These all lead to violations of data governance and security compliance.

4 - Make the source of truth easy to access

In addition to the size limits, the lack of an easy, direct connection from data warehouse to Excel or Google Sheets in many orgs means employees go elsewhere (i.e. Salesforce, Netsuite, etc.) to get their data, or make ad hoc requests to the data team which can lead to files getting stored locally or emailed. What percentage of your company regularly pulls their spreadsheet data from your data warehouse? If your percentage is high, you're best-in-class, but that's not the reality at most orgs. With Row Zero, you can make the "source of truth" data the easiest, default option for getting enterprise data into a spreadsheet.

5 - Enable SSO for your spreadsheets

In addition to making it easy to access enterprise data, Row Zero supports single-sign on (SSO) for Enterprise accounts. You can configure single sign-on (SSO) via OpenID Connect (OIDC) using your organization's existing SSO provider (e.g. Okta).

6 - Set data access controls and spreadsheet and row level security

Row Zero lets workbook owners set view and edit permissions for each workbook. Organizations can also choose to restrict sharing of workbooks and restrict data export. If you set up SSO and connect to your data warehouse, Row Zero enforces each user's security permissions of your data warehouse. For example, if a user can access the row in Snowflake, they can access it in a Row Zero spreadsheet. Otherwise they can’t. This allows data managers to set and maintain access controls and data and row level security down to the individual spreadsheet level.

access controls

7 - Enforce data residency

With Row Zero, you can region lock your data so that your data never leaves a given country or region. This is sometimes necessary for geographic-specific data compliance laws like GDPR.

8 - Ensure SOC2 and HIPAA compliant spreadsheets

Row Zero spreadsheets are SOC2 Type II and HIPAA compliant. With Row Zero you can prevent security and compliance violations and keep your data secure and confidential. Setting up a data governance framework with Row Zero as your spreadsheet solution can also prevent users from downloading CSV files of sensitive data and inadvertently triggering SOC2 and HIPAA violations in a spreadsheet. Upon request, Row Zero will provide the latest SOC2 report or sign a Business Associates Agreement (BAA) for Enterprise accounts. Outside of those compliance frameworks, you can read more about Row Zero's security practices.

9 - Shrink the size of your tech stack

What parts of your tech stack only exist because of limitations of Excel and Google Sheets? Some of your BI tools aren’t necessary if you have a spreadsheet that is 1,000x more powerful than Excel and connects directly to your data warehouse. Ditto for Excel and Google Sheets add-ons or data connectors like Coupler or Coefficient. With Row Zero, you can streamline data flow in your organization. Data warehouse to spreadsheet and back. No middleware. No complex tools.

10 - Reduce ad hoc data requests

Ad hoc requests, by their nature, can be error prone since they are one-off. Long backlogs invite workarounds and urgent timelines can lead to data governance hacks. When your data team is freed up from a never-ending backlog of data requests, they can work on higher-level problems and also put more attention towards establishing and maintaining a modern data governance program and best practices.

Conclusion

Row Zero is designed with security at its core. By seamlessly connecting directly to your data sources and being powerful enough to handle massive billion row datasets, Row Zero lets you simplify and streamline your data stack and enforce widespread data governance across your org. Spreadsheets are and will remain critical to most businesses. For companies that are serious about data governance and/or have big data needs, Row Zero is a great alternative to Excel and Google Sheets. In addition to playing a critical role in your data governance program, Row Zero also lets your teams unlock the power of big data in a spreadsheet they already know how to use.

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