Blog: William McKnight

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Microsoft Excel: Don't Mess

Here’s one more on the theme of what I’ve learned. You’ve heard of Don’t Mess with Texas? Well, how about Don’t Mess with Excel!? Users love the sense of control over the data and the ability to perform their own calculations. (Other) BI tools will not sweep Excel out of any enterprise. However, precisely because of its flexibility, Excel is notorious as a source system for data warehousing and its applications need to get into a DBMS to serve the organization in that capacity.

DW teams often need to start as data providers to the organization, where knowledge workers from all over will pull for spreadsheets. Eventually, through value propositions (see previous ‘what I’ve learned’), those teams should increase their service to where they are providing BI and running the business, not just reporting on it. The Excel issue is a flashpoint for the whole ‘why do we exist’ issue for DW teams.

Technorati tags: data warehouse, Excel

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