Your Data Management Superhero – My SQL Live Data Tables in WP – Ready in No Time
There are times, when you are suddenly faced with the necessity of working with a huge amount of data in WordPress. To make things even more difficult, your client is looking for a solution involving a MySQL table, and he would like to have the results fairly quickly.
Creating graphs or tables from large quantities of data is not one of your strong points. Even if a plugin type tool were available, there will still be a steep learning curve to contend with; or so you think.
Whenever you find yourself in such dire straits, you hope a superhero might suddenly appear to free you from your dilemma; a superhero that is faster than a speeding bullet, has x-ray vision, and can move and manipulate huge stacks of data, as if they were feather-light.
wpDataTables is such a superhero.
wpDataTables is a WordPress plugin that can solve virtually any graph- or table-building issue you are likely to encounter; and you can depend on it to arrive on the scene in your time of need.
wpDataTables’ Amazing Superpowers
In the past, you may have tried to become proficient at MySQL This would only make sense if you had a continual need for it. That would only justify the huge amount of time necessary to learn the ways MySQL works.
There is of course a better way, and one that doesn’t require you to take time away from your design activities. All you need to do is learn how to put this WordPress table and charts plugin to use. That will take you no time at all, and you can then bring your superhero’s superpowers to bear.
X-Ray Vision
Top 10 Marvel movies at the box office, table generated with wpDataTables
Seeing through vast accumulations of information can be nearly as difficult as seeing through solid objects. The plugin’s Table Constructor function resolves this issue by either auto-generating SQL queries to existing tables, importing spreadsheet files you already have, or using the intuitive dashboard to create tables that can be directly edited from WordPress.
Shapeshifting
Shapeshifting involves little more than having an ability to receive and adapt to information that is in a format of your choice; that’s no problem at all for this superhero, whether the information is on a Google spreadsheet, in an Excel or .csv file, JSON, .xml,  others. The shapeshifting feature does all of this, and it also helps you create responsive tables as well.
Chart-Portal Creation
Some heroes have the ability to create wormholes or spatial portals; so can wpDataTables – in an instant. It does so by bending information into place to suit a given purpose, or to fulfill a need. It’s really simple to use and you can even select the colors of the chart that help you keep the branding even in this case.
Super Strength
Since wpDataTables can support server side processing, it can handle large amounts of data at any time. And when we say large amount of data, we’re talking about thousands of lines in a table.
Moving, listing, and arranging data takes but a few seconds.
When the amount of data to be managed is super huge, wpDataTables simply joins forces with the MySQL engine, with a little help from Ajax requests, to manage sorting, filtering, pagination, etc.
wpDataTables can handle large amounts of data – here 1.6 million entries
Teleportation Powers
Not all superheroes have teleportation powers – but yours does. You can easily print a WordPress table, or save it to a .pdf, excel, or .csv file. No problem at all.
Where Your Superhero Data Manager is Best Put to Use
What kinds of data might wpDataTables actually be best to work with?
Applications that often have a requirement to manage or manipulate large amounts of data, and covey the meaning of the data in tables or charts, include financial statistics, operational statistics, and many different types of complex analysis.
Agricultural and scientific statistics are frequent applications, as are advertising and marketing decision-making practices, and even sporting results. The uses are practically limitless, which is all the more reason to have this plugin close at hand.
A Data Manager with Super Features and Super Customer Support
First of all, it’s worth mentioning that wpDataTables is intuitive, and according to 8 out of 10 clients, it is easy to use. In the unlikely event you run into a problem, or simply have a question, the support team stands ready to help.
The useful features are many, and include:
- A three-step process to create a table – upload, configure, and publish
- Responsiveness – users can see and edit table data from desktops, tablets, or mobiles.
- Query Constructor – to quickly fetch data from a WordPress of MySQL database
- Table Constructor – to create tables manually
- Query Generator – to generate MySQL queries, even if you don’t know SQL
- Interactive Chart Generating Engines – use either Google Charts or High Charts
- Customizable Design – add or change colors and fonts, and adjust cells, rows, columns, or buttons to your liking.
- Limited Access Tables – Create tables in which users can edit their own rows – and only their own rows.
The are many more features, including Google spreadsheet support, use of dynamic placeholders that can be managed with shortcodes, a selection of date formats, and the ability to place filters in a widget, outside of the table.
And by the way, wpDataTables is compatible with Visual Composer.
And, as a wpDataTables user, you can expect to receive auto-updates with the release of every new version.
Latest wpDataTables Updates
Like any premium WordPress plugin, many of the features that are incorporated into wpDataTables updates are the result of requests or feedback by the using community. Two of the latest:
- Conditional Formatting – making it possible to highlight rows, cells, columns and change CSS classes.
- Sum/Totals Row – provides the ability to show totals for numeric columns in the table footer.
- Advanced Filtering – you can even filter multiple columns at the same time. An example, you can use this feature to see only those table rows where the price of a product is between 10 and 30, dates 1st January 2016 – 1st April 2016 and clients from USA or China.
The latest version, 1.6.1, is in fact a very large update, with 15 new features including the two mentioned here, and including a number of stability and UX improvements and several bug fixes. A super nice tool that you will definitely use for awesome results.
