Overview

Background

Spreadsheets are the original low-code solution, dating back to the late 70s.

With the universal cells, rows and formula model, industry domain experts, such as traders, can build lucrative financial models without having to write code.

Spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel underpin more of the world's financial industry than we might at first realise.

Some models reference realtime data from external sources such as FX, exchanges, sensor readings and so on, which needs to loaded into cells in a worksheet so that calculations and visualisations can update.

This could be done by polling a database or a web service every couple of minutes. But what about lost opportunities if the data moves more quickly than that? A realtime connection to the data is the answer.

You can use rtd.pub to stream in any data, at any rate, from any source. Whether you're a data vendor looking to provide your own Excel integration, or an organisation looking to interface with existing data vendors, rtd.pub can help you achieve this in far less time than starting from scratch.

Why rtd.pub exists

The aim of rtd.pub is to provide a simple, language-agnostic platform for streaming data into Excel.

In many domains, data vendors (and perhaps your internal systems) expose their data streams through a variety of means such as through message brokers, web sockets, FIX and proprietary socket protocols.

This array of potential protocols and integrations potentially results in writing a lot of code. Running supporting libraries inside the mechanisms provided by Excel (COM-based RTD, JavaScript-based StreamingInvocation ) can make supporting these feeds quite challenging.

rtd.pub provides that bridge between the outside world and Excel. The hard work is moved out of the Excel process and into a process you have control over, with familiar tooling.

If your data is already in a system with a pre-built connector, such as NATS, no code is needed. Simply add some configuration.