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Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

wired.co.uk

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Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#91

Post by hermitcrab »

kfk wrote: post #66
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has personally had to use Alteryx in multiple projects, fuck Alteryx. What an absolute garbage piece of software. I've already written a rant about it before and I don't have the energy to repeat myself, but do not fool yourself into thinking switching from excel to Alteryx is doing yourself any favors. You're just trading one monster for another. Save yourself a huge amount of money, not to mention yo…

Alteryx was my first step into analytics and it helped me get 2 heads funded for my team. But yeah at some point I arrived to your same conclusion and moved my team to python, we never looked back. One thing people don’t realize with these UI tools is that there is no way to use a version control system and I nowadays I cannot think of doing any analytics (including basic BI) without git.

Why can't you version them? Do they all use binary formats?

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#92

Post by hermitcrab »

ZeroCool2u wrote: post #64
NoPicklez wrote: post #4

I work at a large firm which has shifted itself from using Excel, to significantly promoting data analytics tools such as Alteryx in place of Excel. One of the MAJOR improvements from using Alteryx is that it is easier to audit and review the process. With Excel you can be down the rabbit hole of data manipulation or formula driven outputs and realise you have made a mistake but cannot find where or how. Or cannot fi…

As someone who has personally had to use Alteryx in multiple projects, fuck Alteryx. What an absolute garbage piece of software. I've already written a rant about it before and I don't have the energy to repeat myself, but do not fool yourself into thinking switching from excel to Alteryx is doing yourself any favors. You're just trading one monster for another. Save yourself a huge amount of money, not to mention yo…

What was it about Alteryx you didn't like?

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#93

Post by OzCrimson »

Symbiote wrote: post #87
OzCrimson wrote: post #80

Excel bashing is easy but, where's a truly comparable alternative? - Alteryx at $5000/year/user? - A database that requires specialized skill or going through a DBA for every little need? - Salesforce? It's hell to configure if you don't have the skill. - Sharepoint? Again. If you're a small business or nonprofit, you've gotta hire or train someone before this is a serious conversation. I would in no way suggest that…

Instead of only considering a consultant, the company should have a developer on staff to work on small tasks like this. The cost gradually decreases as they learn the business and don't need everything explained from scratch.

See. You've got answers to something that you haven't asked a single question about. But in your judgement the company should have had the right developer on staff.

That's what's frustrating about these anti-Excel discussions.

Ok. What happens when I say that the company bought another company and it had a product line that the new company wanted to pay sales people commissions on? And the compensation plan around it was complex.

For whatever reasons, that's not a report the DBA was up for developing from scratch (or, someone decided his time wasn't to be used that way). That's just the reality.

We can talk about what should have been or what ought to have been, but that doesn't change the reality.

The reality is that I ended up doing most of it ACCURATELY in Excel.

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#94

Post by deknos »

OzCrimson wrote: post #84
ssdspoimdsjvv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel is the proverbial hammer that makes everything look like a nail. It is very flexible, powerful and beginner-friendly. And while you can solve a lot of problems with it, some of those should be handled by other programs (or other people). The problem is that the average Excel user doesn't have the right knowledge to judge what the best solution is to their problem. And sometimes it only becomes clear after long…

Again. What's the comparable alternative? This is so frustrating because I've worked in small departments in an international company. Our problems were too small to get consistent, needed help from IT and we weren't important enough to get one of the limited licenses to the fancy reporting system. Ultimately, there's all this bad talk about evil Excel, but we get no help or other resources. And what about all the ju…

No. it's not the only alternative. it's the only thing you and many other accept. Python+Jupyter is a real alternative.

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#95

Post by ssdspoimdsjvv »

OzCrimson wrote: post #84
ssdspoimdsjvv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel is the proverbial hammer that makes everything look like a nail. It is very flexible, powerful and beginner-friendly. And while you can solve a lot of problems with it, some of those should be handled by other programs (or other people). The problem is that the average Excel user doesn't have the right knowledge to judge what the best solution is to their problem. And sometimes it only becomes clear after long…

Again. What's the comparable alternative? This is so frustrating because I've worked in small departments in an international company. Our problems were too small to get consistent, needed help from IT and we weren't important enough to get one of the limited licenses to the fancy reporting system. Ultimately, there's all this bad talk about evil Excel, but we get no help or other resources. And what about all the ju…

Real life doesn't always provide ideal solutions. In your case, using Excel is probably the easiest or even only way to do what's needed. That doesn't mean it's the best, or even a good solution. If it causes organization-wide problems, whoever runs your organization should make sure better processes are instilled. The only thing you can do is make it clear to the person above you and hope things improve.

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#96

Post by deknos »

OzCrimson wrote: post #93
Symbiote wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of only considering a consultant, the company should have a developer on staff to work on small tasks like this. The cost gradually decreases as they learn the business and don't need everything explained from scratch.

See. You've got answers to something that you haven't asked a single question about. But in your judgement the company should have had the right developer on staff. That's what's frustrating about these anti-Excel discussions. Ok. What happens when I say that the company bought another company and it had a product line that the new company wanted to pay sales people commissions on? And the compensation plan around it…

> But in your judgement the company should have had the right developer on staff.

Yes, like a janitor for example.

> The reality is that I ended up doing most of it ACCURATELY in Excel.

Yes it's the hammer for all your nails. You could also use Python+Jupyter. There are selfhosted and managed versions.

Because of guys like you, municipial installations run their sewage system with an excel sheet because some guy implemented a vba macro to talk to the sewage api endpoint.

let it go.

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#97

Post by rjtavares »

OzCrimson wrote: post #86
lloeki wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems Python or Julia notebook stuff like ipython or jupyter could (and did in some circles) displace Excel in almost all cases. The self-sustained inertia to change is real though.

Who's going to pay to train a Customer Service Rep, Admin Assistant, Sales Assistant or Warehouse Manager to do Python when there's Excel? Get into the world of the Excel user. Some of us do learn coding. But generally speaking? No. If it happens, it's on our own. And we can agree that spreadsheets have problems, and Excel users typically are not data people. BUT! When we agree on that, it becomes evident that a lot…

The problem isn't businesses using Excel, the problem is businesses using Excel for critical processes.

The Warehouse Manager or Sales Assistant doesn't need to learn an alternative, but e.g. the Finance people should. PowerBI/Tableau for reporting and R/Python for modelling should be a thing in those worlds (even if Excel continues to be an amazing tool for entry level stuff and some quick number crunching).

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#98

Post by OzCrimson »

One thing I'm thankful for is my Excel skill.

Why do I even have Excel skill? Because of the garbage reports and data that I was pulling out of databases. I spent YEARS exporting data-dumps and cleansing them in Excel to help customers whose lives were turned inside out because of garbage in databases.

Not a negative word should be uttered about Excel until you can guarantee that databases and software are pristine and never fail due to human error.

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#99

Post by OzCrimson »

deknos wrote: post #94
OzCrimson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again. What's the comparable alternative? This is so frustrating because I've worked in small departments in an international company. Our problems were too small to get consistent, needed help from IT and we weren't important enough to get one of the limited licenses to the fancy reporting system. Ultimately, there's all this bad talk about evil Excel, but we get no help or other resources. And what about all the ju…

No. it's not the only alternative. it's the only thing you and many other accept. Python+Jupyter is a real alternative.

You go tell the Director of Customer Service that his people who are handling critical tasks need to learn Python. Good luck.

Re: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors

#100

Post by OzCrimson »

ssdspoimdsjvv wrote: post #95
OzCrimson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again. What's the comparable alternative? This is so frustrating because I've worked in small departments in an international company. Our problems were too small to get consistent, needed help from IT and we weren't important enough to get one of the limited licenses to the fancy reporting system. Ultimately, there's all this bad talk about evil Excel, but we get no help or other resources. And what about all the ju…

Real life doesn't always provide ideal solutions. In your case, using Excel is probably the easiest or even only way to do what's needed. That doesn't mean it's the best, or even a good solution. If it causes organization-wide problems, whoever runs your organization should make sure better processes are instilled. The only thing you can do is make it clear to the person above you and hope things improve.

We're closer in agreement. And I'd never suggest that Excel was the best solution or even a good solution at times. (I hated the tedious error-prone things that I used to do in Excel.)

I'm just offering the context from which weird stuff happens. And the answer isn't always as easy as: put it in a database.

The context, the processes (or lack of processes), the decision-makers, budgets, timelines, they all play a part in the outcomes.

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