Let's get technical: we want to tell you about Glide's SheetSync technology. SheetSync ensures that any change made to your data—whether from within the spreadsheet or from the app—updates everywhere in real-time, ensuring teams always have access to the latest data. Changing a value in your spreadsheet will instantly update all dependent calculations in every connected app, without the need to refresh the screen. Bi-directional syncing, where data updates in two locations—especially when multiple users are actively changing the data on either side—is a complex problem solved in Glide. SheetSync enables multiplayer writes to sources like Excel and Airtable by queueing changes on a 'mirror' of that data source. Another subtle but critical advantage of SheetSync is the ability to rename or move columns around in a spreadsheet without impacting the app. SheetSync keeps track of the metadata associated with columns to keep apps from being disrupted when spreadsheets are changed. Turning your spreadsheets into apps is a simple idea, with a lot of complex, technical considerations. Considerations we have laboured over for years to make it as easy as possible for you to convert your spreadsheets into software. With Glide, your spreadsheets are as important as they ever were. We don't eliminate them, we augment them.
I spent some time with Mark Probst getting better acquainted with the technical in-and-outs of our product, and boy did a lot of deep thought and complex engineering go into making things feel so simple and seamless. Big kudos to the bright minds who built Glide.