Yes they do. Which is why you hardly get any good support when you have a problem with it. Try opening a support ticket when you hit a snag with Excel. It won’t see the light of day.
So why do IT folks hate Microsoft Excel?
- It’s tough for IT folks to distribute and control Microsoft Excel on your desktops. “Jim, could you upgrade/re-install my Microsoft Excel on my laptop?” You probably see Jim avoiding you for a week.
- IT do not trust Microsoft Excel. Open up an Excel workbook, notice that you can’t trace anything back to a credible source, or who made any changes since it was created. IT folks hate it when they can’t find anyone to blame.
- IT can’t do version control on Microsoft Excel files. Any Excel file can be copied, changed and copied again. There is no absolute version that IT can trust and rely.
So as Excel users what are we to do? The only viable way is to to take responsibility of our own Excel files. Business changes quickly, analysis is needed rapidly. We simply can’t wait for IT that is short-staffed or unresponsive.
In short, we need to know our Excel better than IT folks.
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2 Responses
CH – This is an interesting perspective. I definitely agree with some of your comments. For example, when a user has made a mistake in Excel it is sometimes very difficult to find it later. This is a frustrating experience for the user and the IT expert. Fortunately, Excel automation tools can help with some of the common problems associated with manual reporting in Excel. For example, you can centralize database access onto an Excel automation so that usernames and passwords don’t have to be embedded in every spreadsheet. Excel automation also encourages more Excel file reuse so that debugging only needs to be done in one Excel file, rather than in many.
Hi John, you’re correct. With well thought-out logic and features, automation can certainly relieve some of these problems. The glaring gap of desktop Excel: it’s not designed for security, it’s designed for freedom. My point is as Excel users we need to be Excel-competent since we won’t get good answers from IT. That being said, SharePoint with Excel services can also solve these gaps in access control & security.