@inproceedings{zhao-etal-2024-nl2formula,
title = "{NL}2{F}ormula: Generating Spreadsheet Formulas from Natural Language Queries",
author = "Zhao, Wei and
Hou, Zhitao and
Wu, Siyuan and
Gao, Yan and
Dong, Haoyu and
Wan, Yao and
Zhang, Hongyu and
Sui, Yulei and
Zhang, Haidong",
editor = "Graham, Yvette and
Purver, Matthew",
booktitle = "Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EACL 2024",
month = mar,
year = "2024",
address = "St. Julian{'}s, Malta",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-eacl.158/",
pages = "2377--2388",
abstract = "Writing formulas on spreadsheets, such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, is a widespread practice among users performing data analysis. However, crafting formulas on spreadsheets remains a tedious and error-prone task for many end-users, particularly when dealing with complex operations. To alleviate the burden associated with writing spreadsheet formulas, this paper introduces a novel benchmark task called NL2Formula, with the aim to generate executable formulas that are grounded on a spreadsheet table, given a Natural Language (NL) query as input. To accomplish this, we construct a comprehensive dataset consisting of 70,799 paired NL queries and corresponding spreadsheet formulas, covering 21,670 tables and 37 types of formula functions. We realize the NL2Formula task by providing a sequence-to-sequence baseline implementation called fCoder. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of fCoder, demonstrating its superior performance compared to the baseline models. Furthermore, we also compare fCoder with an initial GPT-3.5 model (i.e., text-davinci-003). Lastly, through in-depth error analysis, we identify potential challenges in the NL2Formula task and advocate for further investigation."
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<abstract>Writing formulas on spreadsheets, such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, is a widespread practice among users performing data analysis. However, crafting formulas on spreadsheets remains a tedious and error-prone task for many end-users, particularly when dealing with complex operations. To alleviate the burden associated with writing spreadsheet formulas, this paper introduces a novel benchmark task called NL2Formula, with the aim to generate executable formulas that are grounded on a spreadsheet table, given a Natural Language (NL) query as input. To accomplish this, we construct a comprehensive dataset consisting of 70,799 paired NL queries and corresponding spreadsheet formulas, covering 21,670 tables and 37 types of formula functions. We realize the NL2Formula task by providing a sequence-to-sequence baseline implementation called fCoder. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of fCoder, demonstrating its superior performance compared to the baseline models. Furthermore, we also compare fCoder with an initial GPT-3.5 model (i.e., text-davinci-003). Lastly, through in-depth error analysis, we identify potential challenges in the NL2Formula task and advocate for further investigation.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T NL2Formula: Generating Spreadsheet Formulas from Natural Language Queries
%A Zhao, Wei
%A Hou, Zhitao
%A Wu, Siyuan
%A Gao, Yan
%A Dong, Haoyu
%A Wan, Yao
%A Zhang, Hongyu
%A Sui, Yulei
%A Zhang, Haidong
%Y Graham, Yvette
%Y Purver, Matthew
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EACL 2024
%D 2024
%8 March
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C St. Julian’s, Malta
%F zhao-etal-2024-nl2formula
%X Writing formulas on spreadsheets, such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, is a widespread practice among users performing data analysis. However, crafting formulas on spreadsheets remains a tedious and error-prone task for many end-users, particularly when dealing with complex operations. To alleviate the burden associated with writing spreadsheet formulas, this paper introduces a novel benchmark task called NL2Formula, with the aim to generate executable formulas that are grounded on a spreadsheet table, given a Natural Language (NL) query as input. To accomplish this, we construct a comprehensive dataset consisting of 70,799 paired NL queries and corresponding spreadsheet formulas, covering 21,670 tables and 37 types of formula functions. We realize the NL2Formula task by providing a sequence-to-sequence baseline implementation called fCoder. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of fCoder, demonstrating its superior performance compared to the baseline models. Furthermore, we also compare fCoder with an initial GPT-3.5 model (i.e., text-davinci-003). Lastly, through in-depth error analysis, we identify potential challenges in the NL2Formula task and advocate for further investigation.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-eacl.158/
%P 2377-2388
Markdown (Informal)
[NL2Formula: Generating Spreadsheet Formulas from Natural Language Queries](https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-eacl.158/) (Zhao et al., Findings 2024)
ACL
- Wei Zhao, Zhitao Hou, Siyuan Wu, Yan Gao, Haoyu Dong, Yao Wan, Hongyu Zhang, Yulei Sui, and Haidong Zhang. 2024. NL2Formula: Generating Spreadsheet Formulas from Natural Language Queries. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EACL 2024, pages 2377–2388, St. Julian’s, Malta. Association for Computational Linguistics.