04-17-2005, 01:04 AM
MarzecTM,
Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and opinions.
Let me make some comments in SOLID CAPS on your original text.
the company setup where i worked for a few summers was exactly the same. internal communications via asp sites on the intranet ( phonebooks, reviews, reports etc. ), database managment in the normal bureaus via Excel. the company is the biggest car producing company in my country which shocked me a lot when i happened to see their internal data managment.
I TOO HAVE BEEN SHOCKED. THERE IS VIRTUALLY NO DATA MANAGEMENT BECAUSE THE USERS OF THESE EXCEL SPREADSHEETS ARE NOT PROFESSIONALS.
i was "forced" to provide them solutions to similar problems that you described ( data mining etc. ) via VBA, the ms office coding language of choice. i proposed to use a real database managment system but they refused this as the employers liked excel so much and it took years to get them to use excel.
well, of course doing stuff like writing a script that harvests datafields from several excel sheets of the same format is a poc. but it's in general a baaaaadd idea. nobody can guarentee you the integrity of the formating which has to stay the same. now go make your employees stick to that. no chance. maybe possible with about 10-20 ppl but not with say 500 of them.
YOUR PROPOSED SOLUTION IS TOO GRANDIOUS. I PROPOSE A SEPARATE, PARAMETERIZED SOLUTION FOR EACH SPREADSHEET. THE FB PROGRAM THAT WILL BE THE SOLUTION GATHERS INFO FROM THE USER LIKE: WHAT "COLUMNS" OR FIELDS HE WANTS TO CHECK (VERIFY), WHAT THE FORMAT OF THESE IS, AND IF ANY OF THESE FIELDS IS A KEY TO BE VALIDATED AGAINST A KEY IN ANOTHER SPREADSHEET, PROVIDING THE FILENAME OF THE OTHER .CSV FILE AND COLUMN NUMBER OF THE KEY TO BE MATCHED.
THAT'S ABOUT IT. IT'S NOT FULL BLOWN DATA MANAGEMENT, BUT IT WILL CATCH A VAST MAJORITY OF EXCEL DATA PROBLEMS.
Also such a "solution" has to be taylored on the companies "excel sheet standard". basically resulting in a hack for each and every company you want to sell your product.
I DON'T KNOW ANY COMPANY THAT ADHERES TO ANY "EXCEL SHEET STANDARD".
don't get me wrong. this excel sheet tatics seem to be standard nowadays, resulting from some computer iliterate employes that normal do financial stuff and just explored the hackish ness of vba scripts. it's insane.
SMART USERS OF LOTUS 1-2-3 USED TO WRITE MACROS. NOW, WITH VISUAL BASIC, I HAVE NOT SEEN ONE USER GET INTO THIS. EVEN USERS OF ACCESS DON'T USE VB. THEY JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT THEY HAVE A DATABASE.
still, if you find a dumb enough company ( and there's plenty of those ) and make them buy your product go ahead, money is a nice thing to have. just make sure you don't have a contract that guarantees support on demand. cause you'd not find time to eat anymore.
YEAH, SUPPORT ON DEMAND WOULD BE DUMB TO OFFER.
*****
Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and opinions.
Let me make some comments in SOLID CAPS on your original text.
the company setup where i worked for a few summers was exactly the same. internal communications via asp sites on the intranet ( phonebooks, reviews, reports etc. ), database managment in the normal bureaus via Excel. the company is the biggest car producing company in my country which shocked me a lot when i happened to see their internal data managment.
I TOO HAVE BEEN SHOCKED. THERE IS VIRTUALLY NO DATA MANAGEMENT BECAUSE THE USERS OF THESE EXCEL SPREADSHEETS ARE NOT PROFESSIONALS.
i was "forced" to provide them solutions to similar problems that you described ( data mining etc. ) via VBA, the ms office coding language of choice. i proposed to use a real database managment system but they refused this as the employers liked excel so much and it took years to get them to use excel.
well, of course doing stuff like writing a script that harvests datafields from several excel sheets of the same format is a poc. but it's in general a baaaaadd idea. nobody can guarentee you the integrity of the formating which has to stay the same. now go make your employees stick to that. no chance. maybe possible with about 10-20 ppl but not with say 500 of them.
YOUR PROPOSED SOLUTION IS TOO GRANDIOUS. I PROPOSE A SEPARATE, PARAMETERIZED SOLUTION FOR EACH SPREADSHEET. THE FB PROGRAM THAT WILL BE THE SOLUTION GATHERS INFO FROM THE USER LIKE: WHAT "COLUMNS" OR FIELDS HE WANTS TO CHECK (VERIFY), WHAT THE FORMAT OF THESE IS, AND IF ANY OF THESE FIELDS IS A KEY TO BE VALIDATED AGAINST A KEY IN ANOTHER SPREADSHEET, PROVIDING THE FILENAME OF THE OTHER .CSV FILE AND COLUMN NUMBER OF THE KEY TO BE MATCHED.
THAT'S ABOUT IT. IT'S NOT FULL BLOWN DATA MANAGEMENT, BUT IT WILL CATCH A VAST MAJORITY OF EXCEL DATA PROBLEMS.
Also such a "solution" has to be taylored on the companies "excel sheet standard". basically resulting in a hack for each and every company you want to sell your product.
I DON'T KNOW ANY COMPANY THAT ADHERES TO ANY "EXCEL SHEET STANDARD".
don't get me wrong. this excel sheet tatics seem to be standard nowadays, resulting from some computer iliterate employes that normal do financial stuff and just explored the hackish ness of vba scripts. it's insane.
SMART USERS OF LOTUS 1-2-3 USED TO WRITE MACROS. NOW, WITH VISUAL BASIC, I HAVE NOT SEEN ONE USER GET INTO THIS. EVEN USERS OF ACCESS DON'T USE VB. THEY JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT THEY HAVE A DATABASE.
still, if you find a dumb enough company ( and there's plenty of those ) and make them buy your product go ahead, money is a nice thing to have. just make sure you don't have a contract that guarantees support on demand. cause you'd not find time to eat anymore.
YEAH, SUPPORT ON DEMAND WOULD BE DUMB TO OFFER.
*****