I posted elsewhere[0] in this thread about my employer's successful practice of replacing shared spreadsheets with web applications.

Here is another option that we use instead of CSV import.

Our applications support custom reports and custom fields.

Users can define new reports and run them on demand.

They can also define custom field types with validation, data entry support, etc.

This combination provides some of the extensibility of Excel while retaining the advantages of an application.

Edited for wording changes.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23292374