Who's behind Columnwise

Background

I'm a Software Engineer & Data Manager at Imperial College London, and founder of SoftCare HealthWare LTD. Over more than 17 years I've worked hands-on with complex multi-user Excel files and VBA macros, relational and object databases, and patient and national registry data, along with the statistics needed to use it responsibly.

Why Columnwise exists

Years of working with multi-user Excel files, VBA macros, and patient and national registry data taught me that most everyday data-cleaning work isn't complicated: it's delimiter detection, type checking, a join, a group-by. What's expensive, or just impractical, is being funnelled into a heavyweight ETL platform that needs installing and configuring, or a cloud "AI data cleaner" that wants your file uploaded first (a non-starter for anything sensitive). Columnwise is a webapp, but it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is installed and nothing ever leaves your machine, so that everyday 80% of the work gets done privately, for free, without an extortionate subscription for what should be a simple task.

Privacy & cookies

Your files are never collected, by Columnwise or by anyone else. Reading, joining, cleaning and exporting all happen in your browser's own memory. There's no upload step for the free tools or the workspace, so there's nothing about your data for a server to see in the first place.

With your consent, Columnwise uses Google Analytics to count page visits: which pages get opened, roughly where from, and what kind of device, with IPs anonymised. It never receives a file name, a column name, a cell value, or anything you type into the tool. Analytics only runs if you click "Accept" on the cookie banner; declining, or just not answering, means no analytics at all, ever, for that visit. You can change your mind any time via the "cookie settings" link in the footer.

This is a plain-English summary of what actually happens, not a substitute for a lawyer-drafted policy. Reach out if you need something more formal for your own compliance purposes.