Just about every company uses Excel for various application purposes. First and foremost, Excel, as part of Microsoft’s Office software, is helpful for spreadsheets. Excel can be used to clean, organize, process and consolidate. When it comes to data organization, companies almost automatically choose the program as a tool.
It’s not easy to change familiar workflows or say goodbye to programs and applications you’ve long grown accustomed to – even if there may be more suitable alternatives in the meantime.
One advantage of Excel is its generality. Any kind of office work is based on the Microsoft Office suite. So when we need to enter data or work on it in a team, we almost automatically choose Excel. Moreover, the basic Excel functions are familiar to most people who have an office job. Simple data analysis, creating lists or comparing quotations: most people have already had contact with this. Another advantage of Excel is its transparency. It allows you to create clear, easy-to-read tables. Excel works visually, so you can see directly what you are doing and where the data is.
For all its advantages, there are a large number of application areas for which Excel is simply not made and also not optimally suited. For example, the program was originally made for spreadsheets. Excel is not a database, despite all the possibilities offered by Pivot and S references.
When using Excel, clutter can quickly arise. Often different versions of a table are in circulation or a colleague accidentally deletes a formula.
In addition to the difficulty of tracking changes, a major problem in Excel is collaboration. While there are ways to modify an Excel document and collect data, this is ideally the job of one person. After all, when data is collected by multiple people in a file, it is helpful to be able to control changes and previous versions. With Excel, these possibilities are limited. Excel is not the right choice for several users working simultaneously in one document.
We have been dealing with IT solutions for offices for years and we know exactly which solutions are best suited for a particular company.
However, we do not want to interrupt our customers’ workflows in order to introduce them to new tools implemented by us. Therefore, we work according to the principle of small steps. We focus on implementing a solution that optimally automates existing Excel files and design the target solution. Step by step we then transfer e.g. data from Excel to SQL, implement additional modules or extend certain functionalities.
It has been shown that the step-by-step transition from Excel to modern tools from VIALUTIONS is very well received by our customers in this way. In addition, the agile approach offers more opportunities to review work and ideas, as the implementation process extends over a period of time.
Feel free to contact us about why it’s worth leaving Excel behind and looking for something better suited to your individual needs.