How to Quickly Build a Real System to Replace Excel: A Complete Guide

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

If you click on this article, you are probably already asking yourself one thing: managing your business with Excel or online spreadsheets feels increasingly frustrating.

I have seen many similar discussions on Reddit as well:

In this article, I will use a real Excel spreadsheet as an example to show how you can quickly turn it into a working business system using NocoBase.

We will start with one of the most common setups: a client‑project spreadsheet.

At first, this spreadsheet was only meant to record basic client and project information. As requirements grew, more and more columns were added, and it slowly evolved into a complex and hard‑to‑manage sheet. This is the reality for many teams that rely on Excel to run their business. Now, it is time to change that.

---

Step 1: Splitting the Data

The Excel sheet contains more than a dozen columns, with different types of information all mixed together. In NocoBase, the first step is to translate this sheet into a much clearer structure.

Original columns

Project ID
Client Name
Client Region
Industry
Project Name
Contract Type
License Seats
Start Date
Target Go Live
Status
Latest Invoice Amount (USD)
Latest Invoice Date
Payment Status
Owner
Notes

In a real system, information should be split into multiple tables with clear relationships.

Resulting data model

Clients
  - name
  - region
  - industry
  → hasMany Projects

Projects
  - project_name
  - start_date
  - go_live
  - status
  - owner
  - notes
  - client_id (belongsTo Clients)
  → hasMany Contracts
  → hasMany Invoices

Contracts
  - contract_type
  - license_seats
  - project_id (belongsTo Projects)

Invoices
  - amount
  - invoice_date
  - payment_status
  - project_id (belongsTo Projects)

Benefits of splitting your data

• Cleaner views – Clients and projects are separated, yet still connected whenever needed.
• Easier workflows – Contracts stay with contracts, invoices stay with invoices, so changes do not ripple through the entire system.
• Fine‑grained access control – Sales teams see clients, finance teams see invoices.

💡 Further reading: How to design a solid data model

In NocoBase, you can ask the AI employee Orin to create these tables and fields for you. Simply send her your requirements and she will generate everything right away. After reviewing and confirming the tables, all four tables and their fields are created.

💡 To dive deeper into the data layer, explore:

• Data Sources - NocoBase
• Data Sources - NocoBase Documentation
• Orin Data Modeling Expert - NocoBase Documentation

---

Step 2: Displaying the Data

Once the data structure is clearly separated, the next step is to present it in a more user‑friendly way. In Excel you are usually limited to scrolling, filtering, and freezing columns.

In NocoBase the frontend is not constrained by these limitations. Each type of data can have its own dedicated view and be displayed in the most appropriate format.

Creating pages and blocks

1. Click the top‑right corner to enter edit mode.
2. Create a few pages.
3. On each page, add blocks that best fit the data you want to show.

Example: Clients table

Start with the Clients table. We can display client names, regions, and industries using a list view.

1. Add a Table block.

   

2. Since there is no data yet, click Actions in the top‑right corner of the block and choose Import.

   

(The article continues with further steps for importing data, configuring views for Projects, Contracts, and Invoices, and setting up workflows. The core ideas are the same: use NocoBase’s block‑based page builder to create tailored interfaces for each entity.)