US Patent 11500839 Multi-table indexing in a spreadsheet based data store

Aspects are described to generate indexing on columns including links to other columns in a different table. One aspect describes a computer-implemented method comprising identifying, for a workbook comprising a plurality of cells and tables stored in a spreadsheet structure, a query comprising a formula, parsing the formula to identify, as one operand, a heterogeneous column of links in a first table of the plurality of tables to a column in a second table of the plurality of tables and at least one operator, automatically generating a virtual column for the heterogeneous column, the virtual column being inaccessible to a user, storing the generated virtual column, evaluating the function of the virtual column for each row of the first table, generating an inaccessible virtual index for the virtual column, storing the virtual index, and evaluating the formula based on the virtual index to generate a result.