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Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

bbc.com

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Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#111

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #53
pjc50 wrote: post #7

Professionalism has been entirely absent from the top-level handling of the pandemic. It's not entirely clear from the article who's responsible for this, but I note that the so-called "NHS" test and trace is in fact an outsourced organisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Test_and_Trace run by Tory placewoman Dido Harding. > "She is a former chief executive of the TalkTalk Group where she faced calls for her to…

While that is true, I have a little difficulty imagining that Harding or anyone else senior was involved in the process of shoveling around spreadsheets. As the overall leadership she obviously has the accountability but just saying, "oh what do you expect when you put a crony in?" ignores the reality that a number of people on an operational level had been doing this for months and nobody seems to have stopped it.

Day one on the job of CEO should be requesting input about systemic organizational and operational problems. Both from your direct reports and from the underlings who actually know what is broken.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#112

Post by LorenPechtel »

londons_explore wrote: post #5
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #2

It's unlikely this will have had much impact since most reported cases were only a few days late but come on guys, really? Using an Excel sheet as a database? In week 1, that would be "not great" but could be accepted as being a fast solution that everyone could work with. This far into a pandemic I think we can expect a little more professionalism in data handling.

People use excel sheets as databases all the time because it doesn't require any specialist knowledge to build or use. Sure, we techy types prefer a proper database with a web frontend and an API, but that requires significantly more skill to build than an excel file. No database has the flexibility and flat learning curve that excel has. Until a database manages to meet these goals, it remains a good tool for certai…

There is also the fact that Excel has some rich editing tools. I have actually seen a system where most editing was done by exporting the relevant items to a spreadsheet, making your changes and reimporting.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#113

Post by mellosouls »

dang wrote: post #100
mellosouls wrote: post #96

Actual title: Covid: Test error 'should never have happened' - Hancock Please note this has been discussed quite a lot here today. Eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24685911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24685950

You're right. But this article contains significant new information (SNI) about Excel, and spreadsheet topics are perennially interesting to HN readers, so this is the rare case where a quick follow-up article, and also the title change, probably makes sense. Usually it goes the other way of course: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=follow-up%20by%3Adang&dateRang... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22significant%20new%20in…

Fair enough, makes sense, thanks. When I posted the comment it was the first comment on the thread (not sure if it's been merged or I'd had the page open a long time before posting) and we'd already had other threads with that leeway. Cheers for the clarification, I'd thought that might be the reason for the earlier ones.

Edit: just seen your other comment re merging, thanks.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#114

Post by pintxo »

callamdelaney wrote: post #105
beagle3 wrote: post #85

This is indeed user incompetence, but so far every news source quoted the official PR and said it was an "Excel Problem". Microsoft PR was caught unprepared - I wonder how they'll re-spin it in the next few days (and for the first time that I can recall, a Microsoft product was wrongly blamed...) Pay attention, how every time there's a Windows virus or worm, it's a "Computer Virus", but in the (extremely rare) occasi…

It's not a user issue, it's a government incompetence issue. Who was the technical genius who thought 'right, we need to store thousands of lines of critical and important data, I know! Excel!'

Have you every worked in a large enterprise?

I have personally tested an Excel based credit rating tool, to be rolled-out globally by a major financial institution.

The fact that one should not do this, is by no means a reason not to do it.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#115

Post by dx87 »

beagle3 wrote: post #85

This is indeed user incompetence, but so far every news source quoted the official PR and said it was an "Excel Problem". Microsoft PR was caught unprepared - I wonder how they'll re-spin it in the next few days (and for the first time that I can recall, a Microsoft product was wrongly blamed...) Pay attention, how every time there's a Windows virus or worm, it's a "Computer Virus", but in the (extremely rare) occasi…

I think Linux and MacOS viruses get a special callout because they're exceptions. Similar reporting conventions are used all the time, like a terrorist attack in the middle east vs a terrorist attack in France. It's not some nefarious PR scheme, the story is just more interesting because of how unusual it is.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#116

Post by SkyBelow »

callamdelaney wrote: post #105
beagle3 wrote: post #85

This is indeed user incompetence, but so far every news source quoted the official PR and said it was an "Excel Problem". Microsoft PR was caught unprepared - I wonder how they'll re-spin it in the next few days (and for the first time that I can recall, a Microsoft product was wrongly blamed...) Pay attention, how every time there's a Windows virus or worm, it's a "Computer Virus", but in the (extremely rare) occasi…

It's not a user issue, it's a government incompetence issue. Who was the technical genius who thought 'right, we need to store thousands of lines of critical and important data, I know! Excel!'

Who? Almost anyone who wanted to get something done without going through the red tape of working with IT. Even in a private corporation that red tape is enough to make many a things end up in excel (or for the more tech savvy, access). Government is surely even worse (better?) at having red tape so the pressure was likely stronger.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#119

Post by gridlockd »

beagle3 wrote: post #85

This is indeed user incompetence, but so far every news source quoted the official PR and said it was an "Excel Problem". Microsoft PR was caught unprepared - I wonder how they'll re-spin it in the next few days (and for the first time that I can recall, a Microsoft product was wrongly blamed...) Pay attention, how every time there's a Windows virus or worm, it's a "Computer Virus", but in the (extremely rare) occasi…

The way I heard it, it was an Excel problem: They had a CSV file that had more than 1 million lines, and Excel dropped the lines beyond 1 million.

I can imagine an automated process that appended to the CSV and then Excel saving back to that same file with the lines stripped.

I hope we can all agree that this is not the way Excel or any other software should behave, whether the user is incompetent or not.

Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel

#120

Post by duderific »

azalemeth wrote: post #82
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #2

It's unlikely this will have had much impact since most reported cases were only a few days late but come on guys, really? Using an Excel sheet as a database? In week 1, that would be "not great" but could be accepted as being a fast solution that everyone could work with. This far into a pandemic I think we can expect a little more professionalism in data handling.

Excel always feels like a bit of a curse of the world for me, and one that makes me feel like I'm going mad. I work partly in partnership with the NHS within my university, and get to see it being applied, completely inappropriately, with no ability to comment. For me, I always feel like I'm living in some sort of parallel universe. Imagine living in a world where _you_, and a select group of others, know that there…

My dad (who is 79 but still working) proudly mentioned that he spent 11 hours putting together some charts in Excel for his client. Probably something that could be done in an hour or so with an online tool.
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