The workspace & project model | ATX AnalyticsTable Handbook

The workspace & project modelA familiar grid on top of a real query engine. ATX AnalyticsTable is a desktop analytics workspace built around the grid your analysts already know, backed by a real analytical query engine. Analysts connect to a database, a warehouse or files on disk, pull results into sheet tabs, clean and reshape them with repeatable recipes, add formulas, conditional formatting and charts, build dashboards, and let the application refresh, export and back everything up on a schedule — unattended. The intent is to retire the 'desktop file plus manual SQL plus copy-paste every morning' routine and replace it with something automated, auditable and version-controlled, without retraining the people who depend on it.

What it does

An easy-to-use ribbon with ten tabs, so an experienced analyst is productive on day one
Sheet tabs, query-result tabs and dashboard tabs live side by side in one project
Projects are folders of small, human-readable JSON files — GRID, SCHEDULES, PIPELINES, FILTERS, Import, Export
Hundreds of thousands of rows handled through the in-process analytical engine, not the browser
Dark and light themes, configurable typography, accent colour and locale defaults
Seven interface languages — English, German, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese — each a complete translation of the ribbon, the dialogs, the settings and the in-app manual
Hyperlinks on cells — Design → Hyperlinks, Ctrl+K or right-click — to a web or e-mail address, a cell or range on this sheet, another sheet, or another ATX project at a chosen sheet and cell; Back (Alt+Left) returns from a jump, Manage lists every link with broken ones flagged, and web and e-mail links travel into Excel exports as real hyperlinks
Only http, https and mailto links are accepted, each checked again when followed and shown with the site's true name before it opens; an administrator can allow, confirm or block web and cross-project links and list allowed, trusted and blocked domains for a whole estate
Interface language is a file, not a build: drop a JSON file into the language folder, press Rescan, and it joins the picker with no restart and no reinstall
A full formula engine with the familiar library — SUM, SUMIF, VLOOKUP, CONCAT, REGEX_EXTRACT, EOMONTH, DATEDIF — with automatic, manual or per-sheet calculation
An in-app manual covering every function, the keyboard shortcuts and each feature, with an Ask AI tab that answers from that documentation in the interface language

How it works

A project is a folder. The workbook sits beside sub-folders that hold its configuration as diff-friendly JSON.
Because those files are small and readable, a project folder can be committed to Git and every change — a renamed export sheet, a changed encoding, an edited filter — shows up as a reviewable diff.
A cell holds one of three kinds of data: grid data (typed, pasted or imported — no restrictions), a preview pin (a live, read-only page of a query result) or a static pin (the full query result, loaded once and still refreshable from its SQL).
Preview pins convert to static from the grid's right-click menu whenever formulas, transforms or pipelines need to run against the whole result.
Large static pins are deliberately not stored inside the saved project — above roughly 20,000 rows the cached rows are dropped and only the query that rebuilds them is kept, which is why million-row projects still save in seconds.

Practices that keep it reliable

Keep one project per reporting deliverable, not per department — the folder is the unit of review and rollback
Put the project folder under version control from day one; the audit value compounds
Use preview pins to explore and static pins to produce — most 'why can't I do this?' moments trace back to that distinction

In a regulated environment

Every configuration change is a text diff, so 'who changed this report and when?' has a definitive answer without a separate change-management tool.
No telemetry and no cloud account: nothing leaves the machine unless an operator asks for it.
Localisation is file-based with per-key English fallback, so a regional rollout does not wait on a product release.

Screens

The workspace — a familiar grid, an easy-to-use ribbon and a query engine underneath.
File — project lifecycle: new, open, save, share, scheduler and backup.
Light and dark themes ship together; locale, typography and accent colour are configurable.
Functions — the formula bar, calculation mode, the in-app manual and Ask AI.
The manual travels with the product — every function and feature, searchable, plus an AI tab grounded in it.
A new project — the Design ribbon, the sheet strip and a grid waiting for its first pin.

Next — chapter 02: Connections & the credential vault
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