Pardon me gentlfolk, bestow upon me thine knowledge of business portals

So, my company is growing. My department handles (among other things) the management of customer pricing data. This includes how we communicate this info to the customer. Currently, with our biggest customer, we pass an Excel document back and forth via email attachment. Because the company is experiencing the growth it is, we are adding more and more customers, and the data set is growing by gigs/day. This is problematic for several reasons:

• If someone in our organization or the customer's isnt looking at the most up to date version, they could run into problems
• if someone changes something on the spreadsheet, and doesnt call it out, others may not catch the change.
• The damned thing is 75k rows and growing, and 7 tabs deep. Its too big to email without compressing, and we are nearing the email-able limit even with it compressed.

So, Im researching ways to host the document and have it retrievable online. We have a website, and Ideally, Id like to be able to link to this solution on our website. Id need to be able to assign users (internal; and external) to user groups with defined rules regarding read/write permissions etc. Also, Id need to be able to tailor the experience to each customer.

In the past, I used a free trial of Microsoft 365 when researching this option for a different part of the company, and I think this is the way Im leaning, though I am open to anything else too. 365 allowed me to host a live excel doc on the cloud, and gain access to it, with different usergroup permission profiles that granted/limited interactive permissions. I could grant users a login name, and assign them to a group. Depending on the groups permission, I could limit users to read only, read/write, grant the capability to host new docs in a specified group location, and deny access to docs altogether if need be, etc etc

I am leaning that way because I have some very limited experience with it. I would not necessarily be opposed to a non-excel based resource either. We have a server that I can store data on if I wanted to, in SQL format for example. If its possible (and easier) to host the document internally in SQL database format, and make it available to outside users via login/username permission, then thats cool too, but I have no HTML coding experience, so I would need a nice pretty skin/GUI that would do all that for me.

So, what can the hive suggest? We have an external data management resource available (kinda like an IT helpdesk), but, theyre slow to respond and typically dont offer much insight, just canned responses and see these interactions as a chance to try and pitch me on another of their products. I trust the minds here waaaay more. so, give me some opinions or feedback

I researched docs as well, and after toying with it for a few days, I found I needed a slightly higher level of sophistication. Providing users with a profile and username, and managing their permissions was not...fun, or elegant. I need this to be reasonably business savvy, if only because this is where the customers will get their goodies. I want it to look like a fine upstanding establishment, not a booth at the farmers market. Im open to Docs, but kinda as a not last, but later resort.

Bueller?

Syncplicity has some nice features in terms of access control. I've sold a couple customers on some smaller packages with cloud-based storage and a couple dozen users and the price was quite reasonable. The document owner can make the doc available via link to specific people so that you have some people that are owners and can change things and other people that can only read the latest version. You can take away access at any time, which is nice. The free version lacks some features but can at least get you started. Your reseller should be able to set you up with a 30 day trial of the full package with AD integration and the whole shebang.

Another sharing service that works really well and is a good bake for the money is Barracuda's copy.com service. I haven't sold that yet, although I've played with it a bit and it is like all the other barracuda product I've seen: inexpensive, simple, and it works. Things like AD integration and the ability to build out private cloud on your own storage aren't there like with Syncplicity but it's more "grown up" and gives you better access control than Dropbox. Also available with a free trial.

If you want to take that information and turn it in to a database backend with a web frontend, I know that there are some sites out there where you can post your problem and have independent contractors bid on building a solution for you. I can't recall the names off the top of my head, but a guy I used to work with used to find contact work like that while working at GE with not a lot to do during the day.

One of my suppliers uses a online, searchable catalog. Logging in sets your prices on the catalog. It's not super user friendly unless you know what you are looking for but it works like a charm and saves me from digging through price lists by hand.

www.doorcontrolsusa.com

Under parts is a login page. Enter guest on both lines and it will give you access to the list without pricing if you want to play with it. I have no idea who wrote it, you might call Door Controls and ask.

Thanks guys, this gives me a few options to look into!

In my perfect world, each of our customers will have a specific document (excel spreadsheet) set up that is tailored to their needs. Ideally, the solution will allow users to access the doc, and (per user permissions), make changes to that online document. Everyone is reading/editing the same thing

Now, the web frontend/DB backend is a great idea too...I will definitely look into that because at least half of the data that I end up reporting out comes from a SQL database on our internal server. Adding the ability to read/write to that database from the web, or thru an internal utility is probably very attainable. I think Im going to contact our IT solutions provider and see what they think.