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Sanity CheckBlog Authors: Roland Reddekop |
Can Lotus Notes Solve The Business Problem of Rampant Spreadsheets Islands?
Roland Reddekop |
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Tags:
spreadsheets
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Comments (6)
About two weeks ago I was promoted out of the IT Dept, where I was the Lotus Notes Dev-Admin, to work in the profit center, driving the business. What I am finding, which I am positive is not unique to my company, is that the default response to just about any business requirement is to create a new spreadsheet, even for completely non-numerical data like marketing plans, schedules, task lists, and even meeting minutes. Then, what's worse is you're told to go fill in your portion on a dozen spreadsheets stored on a Windows file server with long nested folder hierarchies. Further, these spreadsheets are tweaked and tweaked till they grow out of control where printing them is just a joke and they are not truly usable on-screen either. Its a real problem for me because I cannot take off my Systems hat which causes me to think that everything should be stored in a database where it can be properly managed, access controlled, workflowed, integrated with related data, and reported on. This paragraph in an IBM Cognos brochure sums it up accurately:
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1 Ian W Randall Permalink LIES, DAMMED LIES & SPREADSHEETS:
I was once told by a senior audit partner at Price Waterhouse that
the majority of spreadsheets cannot even be relied upon to add-up
correctly.
A similar problem occurs with the use of Word documents for
controlled documents such as procedures on the file servers spread
throughout the organization. You end up with multiple inconsistent
versions of the same information, contradictions galore and a
confusing mess where few people cannot find the correct information
that they need to do their job.
However, I consider that spreadsheets are a an evil curse that
everyone uses in the wrong way and most people (incorrectly) trust
the information in spreadsheets implicitly. The reality is that
they are more often than not the spreadsheets are wrong, and people
often end up using the wrong version or the information in them is
incorrect or misleading. Sounds a lot like the Internet.
2 Kevin Pettitt Permalink Roland, there was a thread about Gantt charts in Notes a while back which I summed up in a couple posts of my own: http://www.lotusguru.com/lotusguru/LGBlog.nsf/SearchResults?OpenNavigator&Query=gantt
That may solve your specific timeline problem quite effectively.
You'll also want to think about extracting Notes data into a
spreadsheet
(http://www.lotusguru.com/lotusguru/LGBlog.nsf)/d6plinks/KPET-6ZGL9L,
and at least initially getting Excel Data into Notes
(http://www.lotusguru.com/lotusguru/LGBlog.nsf/d6plinks/20071019-7858V7
).
On the latter issue, I and others (e.g. Stephan Wissel
http://www.wissel.net/blog/d6plinks/SHWL-6FB8VG) have given lots of
thought to building a tool to take a spreadsheet and not only
import the data but build out forms with fields corresponding to
the spreadsheet columns (via DXL). I don't know exactly where these
initiatives stand but it's worth looking into.
3 Brent Henry Permalink Roland,
If you are using Windows then there are several options available
for creating dynamic views or grids using the embedded IE browser
control in a form using the Notes client. You just need to extract
the data you want as XML or JSON and have it loaded in to a
pre-built html page using javascript.
I have some demo apps that I've built using Adobe Spry as well as
the Simile Timeline libraries
http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/examples/
You can style the html to look like it is part of the Notes client
application and even link to Notes documents from the html using a
notes url.
This works very well and might even be faster than exporting to
Excel.
I'm in Markham most days at a client site close by you and will
also be at the Cross Country Lotus User Group meeting Oct. 1st at
IBM in Markham. I'd be happy to share what I've done if you are
interested.
- Brent
4 Roland Reddekop Permalink @Kevin
Thanks Kevin, I recall reading your post about hacking the Gantt
Charting meme in Notes (and the other bloggers who contributed
earlier) with great interest. These type of solutions work for
well-defined processes though I find that business users just whip
out a new spreadsheet as business requirements change without
discussing with IT. Further, what I am seeing in reality goes
well-beyond Gantt style and blocking charts. Mostly I am seeing
tabular data where the timeline is the horizontal axis and textual
data is typed into the cells. Also, there's a lot of cell joining
going on for data that covers mutiple time frames. Further, the end
user needs a WYSIWYG ability to be able to just edit the data at
will, in-place preferably, and not go through an import/export
process. Its a hard nut to crack in Notes.
5 Roland Reddekop Permalink @Brent
Those examples are pretty impressive. I noticed the text doesn't
wrap in any of the examples. I can say that squeezing text into a
cell that wraps is pretty common. Since you're in Markham too, we
should definitely talk and visit. Unfortunately, I cannot go to the
Lotus event you're referring to because my job is officially not IT
right now, but I'll probably find a reason to attend a future one.
I'll look up your biz card and contact you.
6 Roland Reddekop Permalink @Ian,
Yes, "ain't" it the truth. Managing by spreadsheet is a risky
venture.