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> No version control You can use version control with Excel spreadsheets, though it's not very good. It's called "track changes" and even has a limited capacit

> No version control You can use version control with Excel spreadsheets, though it's not very good. It's called "track changes" and even has a limited capacity to approve/reject changes from other people. Very few people uses that feature, especially not the people who have built a Rube Goldberg machine to run their business processes, but you could do it if you wanted to.

bluGill 1y ago
The people who have "built a Rube Goldberg machine to run their business processes" should have used a database not a spreadsheet. Though they likely don't have enough training in database design and so if they had their result would be worse - but that is the fault of their lack of training. To be fair, database training is not something they should have in their position
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  It’s tricky because a lot of these spreadsheet “apps” are made when the business is young. Specifically non-tech companies who don’t have IT departments let alone any developers. They hire an MSP, get office, and go to town in Excel. By the time they do get big enough to hire internal IT, the Rube Goldberg system is entrenched. Then by the time they get big enough again to need an internal dev team because off the shelf SaaS no longer cuts it, it’s too late. It’d take too many dev resources too much time and money to fix the spreadsheets, design databases, and start popping out web apps. Plus the software development process is too rigid for how fast business requirements can change. The accounting department will just do it in Excel in an afternoon instead of being willing to wait 2+ weeks for the next sprint. So we end up at a place in big enterprises where only some things get successfully moved to something more robust but there just isn’t enough resources (or will to allocate those resources) to tackle every spreadsheet, and so there are always key parts of the business that will forever run on Excel.
asdff 1y ago
You can also just put the spreadsheet into a git repo. Done. Version control.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  You can't track who changed what rows that way. Excel has native support for that. If all you want is to see previous versions, just make the files read-only after saving them and increment a number in the file name every time you change something.
  - asdff 1y ago
    You can if you use csv. You will see the change in a diff and who pushed the commit.
Chilko 1y ago
That's not the only version control through - if you use Excel connected to Onedrive or Sharepoint (like most major orgs in my country), then you have version history built-in tracking every edit going back months.

bluGill 1y ago

The people who have "built a Rube Goldberg machine to run their business processes" should have used a database not a spreadsheet. Though they likely don't have enough training in database design and so if they had their result would be worse - but that is the fault of their lack of training. To be fair, database training is not something they should have in their position

thewebguyd 1y ago
It’s tricky because a lot of these spreadsheet “apps” are made when the business is young. Specifically non-tech companies who don’t have IT departments let alone any developers. They hire an MSP, get office, and go to town in Excel. By the time they do get big enough to hire internal IT, the Rube Goldberg system is entrenched. Then by the time they get big enough again to need an internal dev team because off the shelf SaaS no longer cuts it, it’s too late. It’d take too many dev resources too much time and money to fix the spreadsheets, design databases, and start popping out web apps. Plus the software development process is too rigid for how fast business requirements can change. The accounting department will just do it in Excel in an afternoon instead of being willing to wait 2+ weeks for the next sprint. So we end up at a place in big enterprises where only some things get successfully moved to something more robust but there just isn’t enough resources (or will to allocate those resources) to tackle every spreadsheet, and so there are always key parts of the business that will forever run on Excel.

asdff 1y ago

You can also just put the spreadsheet into a git repo. Done. Version control.

jeroenhd 1y ago
You can't track who changed what rows that way. Excel has native support for that. If all you want is to see previous versions, just make the files read-only after saving them and increment a number in the file name every time you change something.
- asdff 1y ago
  You can if you use csv. You will see the change in a diff and who pushed the commit.

Chilko 1y ago

That's not the only version control through - if you use Excel connected to Onedrive or Sharepoint (like most major orgs in my country), then you have version history built-in tracking every edit going back months.