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Laying down the depressing truth. Our production planning department subverts our erp system via excel spreadsheets that they distribute it has all the problem

Laying down the depressing truth. Our production planning department subverts our erp system via excel spreadsheets that they distribute it has all the problems you'd expect. I looked in horror the first time I gazed upon this thing. The guy who created it hates it and realizes it's a gigantic crutch, but the will to move off of it is a intracompany political land mine.

ourmandave 4y ago
^^^ This. We're migrating away from a legacy system with a ton of Excel based side processes. Also Excel's best friend Access keeps showing up in unexpected places. =\
deleted 4y ago
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0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
I frequently see programmers bemoan Excel-driven business processes, but what is the alternative? Requesting development support for a process used by five people will 1) never be prioritized and forever be on the backburner 2) even if it is ever done, it will not work correctly and getting updates done will require moving mountains for a second time. In contrast, everyone knows Excel and an intern can make changes.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  What I have watched in a quite well known Lifesciences company, is that some of those people eventually outgrow Excel and get the IT department to install VS for them, and they happily continue with VB.NET.
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  >an intern can make changes. Which is both awesome and a major problem, at the same time.
- analog31 4y ago
  Indeed, enabling people to become self sufficient for solving problems with data was one of the main things that propelled the personal computer revolution in the first place.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  Correction: Everyone thinks they know Excel and even an intern can make breaking changes. Excel highly encourages what would be considered insane development practices anywhere else (copy-paste code, single-character variable names, no version control, mixing code and data, mixing front-end code and back-end code, no unit, regression or integration tests, development on live systems). As a result, any nontrivial Excel spreadsheet end up being far more brittle than the same solution coded up by even a well below-average coder. Sure, maybe with extreme discipline these can be avoided, but Summer Intern Derek doesn't have said discipline.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    The thing is: The knowledge is in understanding the business and business process. The ones who grasp that know Excel good enough to build a solution, which works for them (especially as they also know the builtin assumptions and limitations) Transferring that knowledge to a software department (and then limitations back) is quite complex and fails more often than not, leaving the business side with a software they don't want to use and can't adapt and quickly go back to Excel ("I understand it! I can adapt it!") and use the official tool only where required with hesitation. And yes, the Excel tool reaches a messy point, but it's built over years step by step, tied to the process changes.

ourmandave 4y ago

^^^ This. We're migrating away from a legacy system with a ton of Excel based side processes. Also Excel's best friend Access keeps showing up in unexpected places. =\

deleted 4y ago

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0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago

I frequently see programmers bemoan Excel-driven business processes, but what is the alternative? Requesting development support for a process used by five people will 1) never be prioritized and forever be on the backburner 2) even if it is ever done, it will not work correctly and getting updates done will require moving mountains for a second time. In contrast, everyone knows Excel and an intern can make changes.

pjmlp 4y ago
What I have watched in a quite well known Lifesciences company, is that some of those people eventually outgrow Excel and get the IT department to install VS for them, and they happily continue with VB.NET.
hermitcrab 4y ago
>an intern can make changes. Which is both awesome and a major problem, at the same time.
analog31 4y ago
Indeed, enabling people to become self sufficient for solving problems with data was one of the main things that propelled the personal computer revolution in the first place.
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
Correction: Everyone thinks they know Excel and even an intern can make breaking changes. Excel highly encourages what would be considered insane development practices anywhere else (copy-paste code, single-character variable names, no version control, mixing code and data, mixing front-end code and back-end code, no unit, regression or integration tests, development on live systems). As a result, any nontrivial Excel spreadsheet end up being far more brittle than the same solution coded up by even a well below-average coder. Sure, maybe with extreme discipline these can be avoided, but Summer Intern Derek doesn't have said discipline.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  The thing is: The knowledge is in understanding the business and business process. The ones who grasp that know Excel good enough to build a solution, which works for them (especially as they also know the builtin assumptions and limitations) Transferring that knowledge to a software department (and then limitations back) is quite complex and fails more often than not, leaving the business side with a software they don't want to use and can't adapt and quickly go back to Excel ("I understand it! I can adapt it!") and use the official tool only where required with hesitation. And yes, the Excel tool reaches a messy point, but it's built over years step by step, tied to the process changes.