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How to affordably own your office software
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Comments (31)
11 earlier comments in the full thread.
Quoting: IT is off in the ozone, has no idea what management needsOf course, management is never to blame for this debacle.
Get it in writing. If it isn't on paper, it doesn't exist.
Gus3, have you ever seen one form of management taking the blame for anything? As far as I have seen, the only thing management manages to do is decreeing "Make it so!"
And the lower peons get it in writing. One 3 line e-mail asking for the stars is the norm. Doesn't matter if it is an excruciating exercise in copy/paste and Vertical Lookups. "We need those numbers now, how fast can you do it?"
90% of the time there simply is no time to log an incident with a report request into the IT system. It takes 3 weeks before such calls are even processed and then the questions start. "Why do you need this?" "Can't you use a standard report?" "Who is going to pay for this?" Before a simple report is added to Business Warehouse, we're six months into the future. When it is deployed, it simply doesn't deliver the data asked, because it had to be usable for all departments, so they simply scrapped most of the the fields you needed (and others deemed unwanted) and added multiple fields that are totally useless to you.
Meanwhile, a reviled, but tailormade Excel/VBA report has been in use for 6 months...
And the lower peons get it in writing. One 3 line e-mail asking for the stars is the norm. Doesn't matter if it is an excruciating exercise in copy/paste and Vertical Lookups. "We need those numbers now, how fast can you do it?"
90% of the time there simply is no time to log an incident with a report request into the IT system. It takes 3 weeks before such calls are even processed and then the questions start. "Why do you need this?" "Can't you use a standard report?" "Who is going to pay for this?" Before a simple report is added to Business Warehouse, we're six months into the future. When it is deployed, it simply doesn't deliver the data asked, because it had to be usable for all departments, so they simply scrapped most of the the fields you needed (and others deemed unwanted) and added multiple fields that are totally useless to you.
Meanwhile, a reviled, but tailormade Excel/VBA report has been in use for 6 months...
Quoting:Of course, management is never to blame for this debacle.Slightly off topic, but actually a valid rebuttal to what r_a_trip wrote: twice in my consulting career I've had to clean up the mess after a major security incident where heads rolled, as in the IT management/staff or at least the system administrators were fired as a result. In each case I found the admins had warned management about security problems and had recommended solutions that would likely have avoided the incident in the first place. Management wouldn't let them do their jobs, either because security was inconvenient or because they wouldn't spend the time/money. So the sys admins did their job properly, recognized the issues before any problems occurred, provided the correct solutions, and then were fired because management wouldn't listen. Oh, and in one of those cases my contract ended immediately after I suggested tightening security.
So... care to blame IT in ozone again?
When it comes to delivering usable and timely, standard business reports, IT (in "my" multinational) has never failed to disappoint. When it comes to keeping the basic applications running and the nasty external bits out of the network, they do an excellent job.
> When it comes to delivering usable and timely, standard business reports, IT (in "my" multinational) has never failed to disappoint.
I have no doubt that's true. I also have no doubt the IT department's hands are tied by management mandated procedures that dictate their actions.
Simply put, they're probably not allowed to provide the solution you need in the time you need it, and it's probably as frustrating to them as it is to you.
I have no doubt that's true. I also have no doubt the IT department's hands are tied by management mandated procedures that dictate their actions.
Simply put, they're probably not allowed to provide the solution you need in the time you need it, and it's probably as frustrating to them as it is to you.
I don't doubt it. The bureaucracy is killing. Still, this is the answer to why there are under the radar Excel/VBA and Access/VBA tools and for better or worse, these homegrown applications are what create management information.
Since I'm (unfortunately) the main culprit for such tools, I've not come across many unwieldy and imploding applications. Either I think too highly of myself or I keep my abominations small and simple. I have, on occasion, seen other peoples VBA scripts and most of them made me shudder. No comments, goto's out the wazoo and just one big subroutine. So I can't claim these things don't exist.
Since I'm (unfortunately) the main culprit for such tools, I've not come across many unwieldy and imploding applications. Either I think too highly of myself or I keep my abominations small and simple. I have, on occasion, seen other peoples VBA scripts and most of them made me shudder. No comments, goto's out the wazoo and just one big subroutine. So I can't claim these things don't exist.
I think one of the reasons I was seen as a good IT management type was the fact that I could look at things from a business perspective, not just a geek perspective. While I am very happy to be out of management (and grateful I will never have to lay someone off ever again) and much prefer my purely technical role I still try to provide solutions in a way that makes sense to the business/organization. I think that makes me a more valuable IT person. If not, well.... I'm well paid and I enjoy my work so I can't complain :)
It's easy to fall into us vs. them thinking, when frustrations run high. At the end of the day, people go to their work to do the best they can. Maybe the overal disfunction in companies is a byproduct of organisational structures and business succeeds despite that.
"I do agree that once written though, one supports the thing for life." - That one statement r_a_trip is a major issue. The spreadsheet applications work until you leave. Then the new guy has to pick it up, doesn't know how it works and bang it becomes an IT issue.
" have, on occasion, seen other peoples VBA scripts and most of them made me shudder. No comments, goto's out the wazoo and just one big subroutine. So I can't claim these things don't exist." - For every diligent person who is good at VBA there are a dozen that are barely competent that have created a spreadsheet for their kid's scout group and think they can write a data warehouse using a set of spreadsheets, using offsets all over the place and no named ranges anywhere.
Where I will agree is that IT departments do take a long time to get things done. (partly the cost of bureaucracy and partly the cost of planning things correctly and implementing the correct solution).
Lifecycle of an application.....
1. Starts life as a spreadsheet 2. Gets too big so someone builds an Access database 3. Gets too big so someone creates an application....
so that
4. It can export results via a report to a spreadsheet
By the way the amount of companies that I have been to that have buttons on their spreadsheets that when pressed uploads data into live systems. Ouch.
" have, on occasion, seen other peoples VBA scripts and most of them made me shudder. No comments, goto's out the wazoo and just one big subroutine. So I can't claim these things don't exist." - For every diligent person who is good at VBA there are a dozen that are barely competent that have created a spreadsheet for their kid's scout group and think they can write a data warehouse using a set of spreadsheets, using offsets all over the place and no named ranges anywhere.
Where I will agree is that IT departments do take a long time to get things done. (partly the cost of bureaucracy and partly the cost of planning things correctly and implementing the correct solution).
Lifecycle of an application.....
1. Starts life as a spreadsheet 2. Gets too big so someone builds an Access database 3. Gets too big so someone creates an application....
so that
4. It can export results via a report to a spreadsheet
By the way the amount of companies that I have been to that have buttons on their spreadsheets that when pressed uploads data into live systems. Ouch.
What? Upload from a system with weak integrity into live production? Thank deity, we only have download and production is the only leading source.
Our ERP sytem is outdated software wise and in its architecture and the customized reporting hasn't fit the business for at least 5 years, so that is the source of the need to have VBA/Excel glue. So far we haven' t been in the painful position that productivity software has to be abused to become part of the ERP.
Our ERP sytem is outdated software wise and in its architecture and the customized reporting hasn't fit the business for at least 5 years, so that is the source of the need to have VBA/Excel glue. So far we haven' t been in the painful position that productivity software has to be abused to become part of the ERP.
Wow.
This actually turned into an informative discussion (even if not on ZDNet itself).
This actually turned into an informative discussion (even if not on ZDNet itself).
We have a number of spreadsheets that download data from the database, but not that upload. That is scary. Most of the spreadsheets currently in use here that use VBA were actually created as supplemental files or interim solutions by the IT Department (though not by me personally).
Quoting:This actually turned into an informative discussion (even if not on ZDNet itself).You mean you didn't find the comments on ZDNet screaming "Loonix" and "hobbyist OS" and proclaiming the superiority of Windows in all things informative? This is what I've come to expect from LXer and why I don't post on ZDNet.
Quoting:Gus3, have you ever seen one form of management taking the blame for anything?Since you ask, yes. Take a look at the sordid downfall of CardSystems, Inc. One of their missteps was a manager who did a DB dump into an unencrypted file.
I got a brief peek into the office where the breach occurred. I swear, the tension in there was so thick it altered the taste of the air.
Trolling takes a whole lot of energy.
Quoting:Trolling takes a whole lot of energy.If so, the folks who turn up on every SJVN article can probably power a small city.
This thread brings back memories of the bad old days in my career - not to mention echoes of my current efforts to extract cash from people.
Once upon a time, I worked in a company that was set up to act as a sort of IT utility for a very large corporation. This was in the late 1980s. Part of my job was to meet with people in the very large corporation to see how we could provide for their needs. Inevitably, we could offer expensive solutions that would take a long time to implement in order to perform the functions Steve two cubes down was doing with Lotus 1-2-3.
Tough sell. Never mind little issues like data integrity and coherence, security, backup, testing. Etc, etc.
And the folks I talked to weren't being irrational. They had jobs to do and the process of getting approvals and fund allocations were a nightmare, whereas relatively low-level managers had signature authority to buy things like PCs and Lotus.
I see a lot of that echoed today, from people who are tired of hiring developers to work their e-commerce sites, and wonder why they can't do everything they want in WordPress.
Sigh.
Once upon a time, I worked in a company that was set up to act as a sort of IT utility for a very large corporation. This was in the late 1980s. Part of my job was to meet with people in the very large corporation to see how we could provide for their needs. Inevitably, we could offer expensive solutions that would take a long time to implement in order to perform the functions Steve two cubes down was doing with Lotus 1-2-3.
Tough sell. Never mind little issues like data integrity and coherence, security, backup, testing. Etc, etc.
And the folks I talked to weren't being irrational. They had jobs to do and the process of getting approvals and fund allocations were a nightmare, whereas relatively low-level managers had signature authority to buy things like PCs and Lotus.
I see a lot of that echoed today, from people who are tired of hiring developers to work their e-commerce sites, and wonder why they can't do everything they want in WordPress.
Sigh.
Isn't that the problem everywhere? Everybody wants the perfect end result, but noone wants to think about, expend effort or spend cash to get a working system that poduces that end result. That is why there are lots of little projects with shoestring budgets, which deliver halfbaked solutions that noone can really use. "Steve two cubicles down" meanwhile performs his black magic with the standard supplied Office tools.
@r_a_trip:
Sometimes people have no choice available to them. When the pros can't deliver, the amateurs find a way to get the job done.
It happens in other areas, too. I'm pretty handy with tools, and can fix a number of things.
Mechanics and other service techs can do things I can't do, but I can do things they can't realistically do. Professionals have to be concerned with things like re-work and liability. I can decide to take the chance that a repair I do will fail. More to the point, I can invest some of my time to do things that would never make sense if I were paying a pro to do it.
Similar dynamics exist in a department where the humans can easily detect oddities that would require expensive software design, development, and testing to catch. They might decide that, "Hey -- if that happens, we'll see the kavotzle count go all whacky and know something's wrong". As to the hours spent doing whatever development is done, they are probably paying Steve a salary, so he's already in their budget.
Sometimes people have no choice available to them. When the pros can't deliver, the amateurs find a way to get the job done.
It happens in other areas, too. I'm pretty handy with tools, and can fix a number of things.
Mechanics and other service techs can do things I can't do, but I can do things they can't realistically do. Professionals have to be concerned with things like re-work and liability. I can decide to take the chance that a repair I do will fail. More to the point, I can invest some of my time to do things that would never make sense if I were paying a pro to do it.
Similar dynamics exist in a department where the humans can easily detect oddities that would require expensive software design, development, and testing to catch. They might decide that, "Hey -- if that happens, we'll see the kavotzle count go all whacky and know something's wrong". As to the hours spent doing whatever development is done, they are probably paying Steve a salary, so he's already in their budget.
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IT can deride Excel, VBA and the people using it all it wants, but the truth of the matter is that management asks departments to provide what they need and management is quite frankly not interested in how it gets done, only that it gets done and preferably yesterday. Of course all "with the press of a button". While corporate IT is still debating if and how reporting tools are to be delivered, local departments have to make do with raw data exports out of the production system and glue it all together with Excel and VBA.
Ideal is a different matter alltogether, but without makeshift solutions, work wouldn't get done. Corporate IT is too far removed from working reality, management is too (deliberately?) oblivious to notice that information is provided out of makeshift, "duct tape" spreadsheets, and the departments are forced to maintain the circus, while being too voiceless to change it.
On a personal (and maybe a tad defensive) note... As far as I can tell, I'm not prone to creating "large and unwieldy and completely unsupportable applications that eventually fall over". Then again, as a Linux user at home, I like small, compact and well working tools. I try to keep my Excel/VBA creations barebones and limited to what is essential. While it is easy to add frills and include the kitchen sink, doing so only leads to difficult to understand/maintain and highly fragile tools. I do agree that once written though, one supports the thing for life.