How Cariloop Turned an Excel ROI Workbook Into a Live Sales App

You know that Excel ROI calculator your team has been using for years? The one with eight tabs, countless versions floating around, and formulas buried so deep nobody remembers what they do anymore? That workbook might technically work, but it's probably costing you deals.

Here's the thing: when a prospect gets excited about your ROI story during a sales call, that momentum matters. If your rep has to say "I'll send you the numbers in a few days," you've already lost ground. The conversation cools. The CFO moves on to other priorities. And meanwhile, your data team is stuck churning out workbook after workbook instead of doing higher-value work.

At Domo BUILD 2026, T.C. Riley, senior director of data analytics at Cariloop, walked through exactly how he turned a "spreadsheet from your nightmares" into a live sales ROI app in Domo.

T.C. shared the pain points that made their old Excel approach unsustainable and demonstrated how they rebuilt the entire experience using AI-first techniques. What follows is a practical framework you can use to make the same shift, whether you're on a platform like Domo or tackling this transformation with other tools.

Key takeaways

Here's what you need to know about moving from spreadsheet to live sales app:

• Static ROI workbooks create sales friction through version chaos, delayed delivery, and confusing UX in front of prospects.
• The goal is elevating your value story into something reps can use live and CFOs can trust—not just making accurate calculations.
• Transparency becomes a sales asset when you surface assumptions and let prospects challenge them.
• Shifting ownership to sales eliminates the "phone a friend" bottleneck and frees your data team for higher-value work.
• Speed to follow-up is measurable: deliver ROI artifacts before the call ends, not days later.

Diagnose your spreadsheet pain points

Identify where version sprawl and delays hurt your sales cycle

Before you build anything new, take an honest look at what's broken. T.C. described Cariloop's situation like this: "One workbook, eight tabs, many, many versions. It's out of date by this week. You open one up, I'm not even sure what version this is I'm using." That version chaos creates real problems beyond just confusion.

Start by mapping out where your current ROI process breaks down. Ask yourself these questions:

• How many versions of your ROI workbook exist right now?
• How long does it take to get ROI numbers to a prospect after a call?
• How many tickets does your data team handle for workbook requests?
• Can your reps actually run the calculator live during a conversation?

The last question matters most. If ROI shows up days after the call instead of during it, you're losing momentum at the exact moment your prospect is most engaged.

Design for the live conversation

Build inputs and outputs that work while the rep is still talking

The shift from spreadsheet to sales app isn't just about better technology. It's about rethinking when and how the tool gets used. "Build for the moment the conversation happens," T.C. said.

That means designing your app around what happens in a live sales call. Your inputs need to be simple enough that a rep can adjust them while maintaining eye contact with a prospect. Your outputs need to be clear enough that a CFO can understand the bottom line at a glance.

Consider these design principles:

• Use presets and defaults so the tool is nearly ready to go out of the box
• Keep adjustable filters visible and intuitive (duration, company size, industry benchmarks)
• Generate shareable artifacts immediately, not through a separate export process
• Make the value story visual, not buried in tabs

T.C. noted that Cariloop's app now generates a clean PDF with one click, meaning "the rep did this live, this thing's out the door before the call ends." That speed changes the entire dynamic of the sales conversation.

Make transparency your competitive advantage

Surface your assumptions and invite prospects to challenge them

Here's a counterintuitive move: instead of hiding your ROI logic behind the scenes, put it front and center. T.C. explained that Cariloop's app shows exactly where benchmarks come from and why they're used, then explicitly encourages prospects to "change these up, fight us on this."

This approach does two things. First, it builds credibility with finance and procurement teams who are naturally skeptical of vendor ROI claims. Second, it keeps the conversation moving because you're collaborating on the numbers rather than defending them.

When you build your app, include these transparency elements:

• Show the source for every benchmark or industry average
• Let prospects override any assumption with their own data
• Display the calculation logic in plain language, not hidden formulas
• Include context for why each metric matters to the ROI story

The goal is to eliminate the "smoke and mirrors" feeling that makes CFOs roll their eyes at vendor calculators.

Shift ownership to sales

Free your data team by making reps the experts

One of the biggest wins T.C. described wasn't about the app itself. It was about who owns the process now. With the old workbook approach, every ROI request landed as a ticket in the data team's queue. That created bottlenecks and kept the analytics team stuck in a task list instead of doing strategic work.

The new app changes that dynamic entirely. Reps become the owners and experts of the ROI story. They don't need to call the data team as a "phone a friend" lifeline. Everything they need is right there in the app.

To make this shift work, focus on these elements:

• Design the interface so it requires minimal training
• Include talking points or pitch guidance alongside the numbers
• Build in guardrails so reps can't accidentally break the logic
• Create a single governed version that eliminates the "which file is this?" problem

When you get this right, your data team stops pumping out workbooks and starts building more apps. T.C. described it as "apps on apps on apps," with the ROI calculator opening the door to client ROI tools, pricing calculators, and coverage maps.

Measure speed as an outcome

Track time-to-follow-up as a key success metric

The ultimate test of your spreadsheet-to-app transformation is simple: how fast can you get ROI information into a prospect's hands? If the answer is still "a few days," you haven't solved the core problem.

Set up tracking for these metrics:

• Time from sales call to ROI artifact delivery
• Number of data team tickets related to ROI workbooks
• Rep confidence scores for presenting ROI live
• Prospect engagement with shared ROI documents

Cariloop's transformation took something that had been "sitting on the side of my desk, eating a hole at me for years," according to T.C., and turned it into a live, branded calculator in a matter of days. That kind of time-to-value is possible when you approach the problem with the right framework.

Catch Cariloop's full Excel-to-app session

In his session, T.C. also touched on how this transformation opened up a broader app roadmap at Cariloop, including client-facing ROI tools and pricing calculators that had been stuck in Excel for years. The same principles apply across all of them.

If you want to see the full demo and hear T.C. walk through the specific features that made this work, watch the full session. The session was hosted by Domo as part of BUILD 2026, and it's worth your time if you're sitting on a similar spreadsheet problem.