
Show HN: QueryStorm – A query IDE inside Excel - anakic
https://www.querystorm.com/
======
anakic
I've posted about this about six months ago, the original post
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11583488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11583488))
was fairly well received, and I thought I'd follow up.

Back then the plugin was called ThingieQuery, which turns out not to be a
great name for a product aimed at enterprise customers. Since then, I've been
quite busy, I've incorporated, rebranded, sold (licenses), polished, and other
verbs as well. I've also adjusted the pricing and switched to a freemium
model.

Here's the free vs. paid breakdown:

\- Free stuff: basic IDE functionality, full SQL support for tables in Excel,
query automation, non-commercial use

\- Paid stuff: (in addition to all the free stuff) connectivity to external
databases, advanced IDE functionality (autocomplete, error squigglies, etc.),
commercial use

The free feature set is pretty useful on its own. Offering it makes sense from
a business perspective - to drive adoption, but also from a personal
standpoint, since it's a product I'm proud of and would like as many people to
make use of it as possible.

The paid licenses come in two flavors:

1\. Professional

\- for people paying out of pocket

\- can activate 2 machines at the same time (e.g. work/home)

\- licenses can be transferred ad-hoc to other machines with a 1-min procedure
(e.g. when working on a client's computer)

2\. Enterprise

\- a per-seat license for purchase by companies

\- includes support

\- can also be transferred from machine to machine

The license types were in large part influenced by the feedback I got in the
original post.

I should note that I'm running a December discount promotion; you can use the
following key to get a cool 40% discount on a Professional license: RZHDNDT4

In any case, please do take a look and give it a try. The trial licenses (for
the premium features) have been reset since last post, so you can use a new
one even if you've used a trial before.

Feedback, customers, and free users are most welcome and appreciated:)

~~~
patates
Hi, this is great. I'd gladly pay $99 for having such a convenient helper.
However, I'm sad to see it's a temporary license. This is not SaaS, but priced
like one.

Can't you make it $X for the product + 1 year of updates?

I understand that you need sustainability but you can seek for that on
enterprise support deals and by convincing users to renew their license after
a year to get a newer version.

~~~
anakic
Hi patates. I get your point. As a user, I'd want that too. I had previously
priced the professional license at $149 as a one-off price, but then noticed
companies were buying those instead of the enterprise ones, and getting
unlimited licenses. I'd definitely like to keep the subscription model for
enterprise licenses, but would not mind having the private ones be a one-off
price. I'll have to think about that. If I do that at some point, I'll change
the existing licenses to permanent, to not be a jerk to existing customers:)

~~~
eitland
JetBrains which creates IntelliJ etc is nice this way, they give you a
permanent license to the last version released while you were still a customer
(provided you are a customer for more than x months first.)

I find this both smart and nice: you can pay monthly and still get a permanent
license so you won't be trapped.

Full disclosure: I use Netbeans which is free from the start and which I like
better anyway, I'm just saying Jetbrains seems to be a nice company ;-)

~~~
anakic
Yeah, something like that might be the way to do it. Cut off old licenses from
new versions but leave it functioning indefinitely with old versions. Offer a
paid upgrade option. I think I like that option.

~~~
seanp2k2
Always seemed like a fair system to me as well. You're paying for a year of
updates, then after that it'll continue to work and receive security-critical
updates, but you won't get the new features. Of course, it's possible to
totally plan features out over the years to encourage people to upgrade, or
e.g. Hold back something many have wanted in order to release it with the next
big version where people would get cut off, but alas.

------
bpicolo
Just a heads up, your "buy" button 404s
[https://www.querystorm.com/payment/buy](https://www.querystorm.com/payment/buy)

Also, remember your first post. Love the new name! Great product too, good
luck out there! (Don't think you'll need it).

~~~
anakic
Thanks for the heads up (fixed it) and the kind words!

~~~
avisser
Now it's a 500.

~~~
bpicolo
To clarify, he didn't fix the page I mentioned, he just changed the link to
point to the new place :)

------
j_s
Is there anyone doing anything like this out in open-source land?

Is there anywhere I should go to find open-source resources for Excel?

It seems like most Excel stuff that is easy to find is distributed similarly
to this tool. Managing macros in source control is annoying!

~~~
osullivj
govert's excellent ExcelDNA [1] enables one to build XLL Addins in .Net. Many
use it for crafting Excel extensions, including BlockSpring. I used it for
SSAddin [2] to build cron jobs as well as tiingo and quandl downloads in
Excel.

[1] [https://github.com/Excel-DNA](https://github.com/Excel-DNA) [2]
[https://github.com/SpreadServe/SSAddin](https://github.com/SpreadServe/SSAddin)

------
cm2187
What I think is missing in term of data analysis in Excel, is a pivot table
that can work on a relational dataset in a SQL server, without downloading the
whole table as a join as a first step.

Use case: the data is too large to be downloaded and held in memory on a
client computer. What you really want to happen is for the aggregation to
happen on the SQL server. So that the pivot table would generate SQL code
dynamically for the SQL server to do the equivalent of what the pivot table
would do with in-memory data, and would only download and display the result.

SQL is useful to developpers, but you can't expect business users to write
complex queries.

~~~
grzm
Basic SQL is pretty easy to pick up, especially if you're motivated to get
something done. You can get a lot done knowing how to work simple JOINs, WHERE
clauses, and some aggregate functions.

~~~
anakic
Yeah, if you can understand vlookup, you can certainly pick up sql joins
fairly easily. You can do quite a lot even with basic SQL skills.

Reaching business people from a marketing perspective and talking to them
about SQL is a whole different thing, though.

~~~
cm2187
Yeah but I found myself in that exact position. I provided data to a bunch of
business users who don't understand SQL but understand pivot tables
extensively.

I have the choice between either spending a few days educating them on how to
do SQL, or to give them data in a way that they can use the tools they are
already familiar with.

I was too busy to do the former.

The other thing is that SQL sucks at creating pivot tables. It is good when
you only want to aggregate in one direction. When you want to aggregat in
multiple directions (column A by row, column B by row) the syntax becomes
tedious to do by hand.

------
_raoulcousins
Awesome! I work in Excel on a shared Windows server VM. Is it possible to
install an add-in like this for one user, or will everyone using Excel on this
VM see the add-in?

Ideally, I'd buy a license for myself right now and start using it if I could
install the add-in only for myself without needing an admin user to install
it.

~~~
anakic
Glad you like it!:) It's a per-user installer, so only you would see it. It
shouldn't require admin privileges unless a prerequisite is missing.

It requires .NET 4.5 and vstor (visual studio tools for office runtime).

\- .NET 4.5 comes out of the box with Win8 or higher.

\- vstor comes out of the box with Office2013 or higher.

QueryStorm's installer checks if the two prerequisites are present, and if
not, downloads them from Microsoft and installs them automatically. It will
prompt for admin rights only if one of them is not present and needs to be
installed.

Is it popping an admin prompt for you?

------
viggity
I'm assuming you're using the traditional excel plugin model (written in c++
or .net) and not their new "Office Apps" (formerly add-ins) that works on both
excel native and in Office365 web versions of excel?

~~~
anakic
Yeah, the .NET one - VSTO, visual studio tools for office. Haven't played
around much with the web one. Most things QueryStorm does wouldn't be possible
in the office apps model, e.g. hosting SQLite. It's too bad because it limits
QueryStorm to PC desktop only.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Most things QueryStorm does wouldn't be possible in the office apps model,
> e.g. hosting SQLite."

Odd, what problems would you have hosting SQLite with an Office App? I've got
a solution that could work if you're interested, it's a bit of a hack but I've
done a proof of concept before that shows it works... Essentially you can run
your own local web server as a service, and have the Office App make use of
this service. You could even get the web server to start when Excel starts.

~~~
anakic
Honestly I haven't tried Office Apps, it just seemd like it would be tricky
and I didn't have time to investigate. I can see how the local web server hack
might work, though. Would it work in the browser and on the Mac?

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Would it work in the browser"

Depends on how you host the app. If it's hosted locally, then no.

>"and on the Mac"

Maybe. I'm nor that familiar with the Office for Mac features. I did try to
search online to see whether Office for Mac supported Office Apps, but it's
not the easiest thing to search for.

------
fiatjaf
I am proud I was one of the firsts to upvote and comment about ThingieQuery on
HN, 604 days ago (if I remember well I was the first one, and my comment
reflects that).

I liked the other name better, but I understand the reasons for changing it. I
am pretty happy it grew into a sustainable and profitable product.

I'm curious about the use-cases this plugin has in enterprise companies. I've
never worked in big companies that used Excel or whatever. What is the flow?
Which kind of companies use this?

~~~
anakic
Hey, I remember your username from back then, thanks for the support!! Yeah,
that was the first HN post I did.

About use-cases: techy people use if for hacking away at data in Excel and
import/export. Enterprises also seem to want the automation part. The main
scenario there is to have IT folks prepare queries, embed them into the
workbook and set up triggers. Business users or clients then just interact
with the workbook, without caring about the SQL queries that are running in
the background populating data. Nice for interactive reports, much faster than
building web applications for the purpose. That said, I do need to start doing
surveys as this are just my conclusions based on email exchanges with users.

~~~
fiatjaf
It's great to know I don't have to know all the dirty details behind
enterprises to develop a useful and profitable product!

------
echoofecho
Given that MS Office is priced at $99 per year, your pricing seems very high.

------
anakic
Is anyone having installation issues? I'm showing strange things in logs. I
can see downloads, but my licensing service does not seem to be issuing the
free licenses.

------
Too
Looks great but I would guess all this functionality is already built into
excel somewhere. You just have to be ninja enough to find it.

~~~
anakic
Well, some things you certainly could, but this really opens up many more
possibilities than is obvious at first glance. Another big thing is
convenience, which is along the lines of what you said. Single click to open
query editor, full autocomplete, star expansion, etc., easy 2-way
communication between a db and Excel (instead of the clunky import/export
procedures).

There are a ton of areas where this offers benefits, in larger or smaller
ways. It can solve problems people don't even recognize.

~~~
devoply
I guess that's one problem you have to worry about now. Microsoft is bound to
incorporate something like this into Excel sooner or later. :(

~~~
Zyst
Better yet, Microsoft might offer to buy them out.

~~~
devoply
throwback
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE)

------
agumonkey
anybody remembers the tiny almost hidden relational editor built into excel ?

------
PeCaN
I bought this last time it was posted here, back when it was ThingieQuery.
It's been super useful to me. Definitely recommend trying it out, it's
basically a SQL IDE within Excel.

Some of the things I've used it for:

\- Poking around random SQLite databases

\- Importing oil&gas production data from SQL Server, and running calculations
in Excel

\- Running SQL queries on large Excel tables created as a result of some
screen-scraping

