There are plenty of tutorials about working inside spreadsheet cells: creating formulae, finding ways to extract elusive data, etc. However, some of the best Data Management attention is spent outside of the spreadsheet cells: development of the overall file. So …
5 Spreadsheet Development Ideas that are Fun & Games Until …
Linking workbooks
was Fun & Games until …
Someone moved one of the workbooks to a different folder and broke all the links
He thought his 3D graphics were the shiznit until his mother couldn’t open the spreadsheet without crashing Excel.
Saving several large Pivot Tables in a workbook
was Fun & Games
until …
The file size ballooned to a size too big to email and some users couldn’t even open the file
Beautiful bold 3D charts
were Fun & Games until …
The spreadsheet’s performance slowed to a clumsy crawl
Lots of VBA Code and little consideration for the end-user
was Fun & Games until …
The novice owner of the process renamed a tab from ‘Clients‘ to ‘Accounts‘ and now the macros looking for ‘Clients‘ don’t work
Several hundred VLOOKUPs
was Fun & Games until …
The document used so much of the system resources that it frequently crashed Excel and any open documents.
Don’t be like the guy in the picture. Develop good spreadsheets and your mother won’t beat you with a wooden spoon.
As always, I invite you: go on out there into the world and keep that data clean.
This is the most fun I’ve had reading a post about Excel! Followed you over from the Orbit Media blog, and I’m so glad that I did.
@CourtneyRamirez Courtney, thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. 🙂
Excel can & should be fun, like orbiteers . Do you use Excel much?
@OzData orbiteers I do – although not for this type of work. Now that I know what’s possible I may be increasing my spreadsheet numbers.
That’s good to know! I recently conducted a survey of a grop I belong to–about 30 people. I asked if anyone was interested in learning more about Excel, and if so, what would they like to know.
100% were interested in knowing more, and the vast majority had no specific questions. They wanted to find out what was possible.
Sounds like you’re a bit surprised at what Excel can do. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
@CourtneyRamirez