when did a spreadsheet become a dataentry form

One of the companies I work for has an archaic system
that runs EVERYTHING. They teach accounting seminars.

The system does reservations, billing, scheduling,
accounting, certificate issues, past due notices, etc.

It is 15 year old, runs in a DOS box, and they have
a love/hate relationship with it.

The core software is called Arev, which is a Pick database
on DOS implemtation.

I HATE IT.

We have explored moving them to a new system, and found
it will run between $80K and $300K. For no payback other
than being assured they have future support.

Since they really haven't had any support for the last 5
years, it's kind of hard to convince them to pay that kind
of money for no ROI. These ARE accountants after all.

So anyway: They have a particular seminar type that can't
be handled based on the current system. So they track it
outside the system, using Excel.

It will cost around $5K to modify the syatem to handle it,
or $10K to write a new system based on the new needs, and
then lay a foundation for growth. The rewrite is really
the best thing to do for the business in the future.

Or, I can hack together a series of Perl scripts to read
and write the Excel file to exctract the data they need
for reporting and update it based on external events.

They KNOW this is wrong, I'm the 1st one to tell them.
And I would make no money on a rewrite, so it is not like
I'm pitching something to make money.

But something tells me they'll pay me to band-aid it and
keep using the spreadsheet, than any alternative.

Post #211,925 by boxley 6/21/05 12:14:04 PM Reply	when did a spreadsheet become a dataentry form for a database without the fuckwittery to ensure that integrity checking happens? Dont call and say I need to reformat because I put an entry in the correct column but not in the row allocated for that object. Sez I Its a new row? no, it doesnt work grrrrrrrr.A spreadsheet is a rows and columns that can be manipulated not a lazy fucking way to build a form!!!! thanx, bill All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #211,929 by mmoffitt 6/21/05 12:40:49 PM Reply	The previous CIO here, actually said that he wanted "all applications to use Excel as their user interface for data entry." I.shit.you.not. bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #211,930 by boxley 6/21/05 12:41:32 PM Reply	did they ever find the body :-) All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #211,931 by mmoffitt 6/21/05 12:44:04 PM Reply	Rumored to be in Maryland or Delaware ;0) bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #212,598 by Arkadiy 6/25/05 8:46:42 PM Reply	Still working an xIO gig, I betcha ------ 179. I will not outsource core functions. -- [link\|http://omega.med.yale.edu/~pcy5/misc/overlord2.htm\|.]
Post #211,932 by tuberculosis 6/21/05 12:45:47 PM Reply	Oh, I can top that At a certain provider of custom applications for the telco industry, one client decided that these newfangled graphical user interfaces cost too much to develop. He proposed the creation of a text based "order entry language" that would let the CSRs just do a bunch of typing into a text field and submit it. Said exec's proposal for this language looked surprisingly like sql insert statements. It was, fortunately, never developed. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #211,933 by boxley 6/21/05 12:55:42 PM Reply	theres a great idea! no sanity checking at all All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #211,934 by ChrisR 6/21/05 1:03:50 PM Reply	Just spent 4 weeks doing that Tried to get a little control over the matter. Export an xml file with at least some semblance of structure (columns, dropdowns, data validation, conditional formatting, etc...). The work on the data at their own leisure. Upload the worksheet and it tells them how many rows and cells it can not decipher. No direct attachment to the database though, as that would be insane!
Post #211,938 by boxley 6/21/05 1:12:53 PM Reply	Im sure a simple xml form to be filled out in a browser would be much easier. By the time you layout a complex several paged work book, a layout in html that would populate tags would not take any longer and would eliminate populating cells that shouldnt be populated. A spreadsheet should be used for math not data. thanx, bill All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #211,950 by ChrisR 6/21/05 2:42:24 PM Reply	Tell that to the Accounts. Already had the stuff in a similar format for online app in the browser. Accountants and various other bean counters seem to only know Excel. The one advantage it does have is being able to go offline for an extended period of time. Da boss doesn't quite comprehend though why I can't keep the users from doing stupid stuff within excel.
Post #211,952 by boxley 6/21/05 2:44:38 PM Reply	we need to get into the classroom then unless there is a dollar amount, any work submitted in a spreadsheet is an automatic fail. thanx, bill All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #212,608 by broomberg 6/25/05 11:06:53 PM Reply	I'm an enabler. One of the companies I work for has an archaic system that runs EVERYTHING. They teach accounting seminars. The system does reservations, billing, scheduling, accounting, certificate issues, past due notices, etc. It is 15 year old, runs in a DOS box, and they have a love/hate relationship with it. The core software is called Arev, which is a Pick database on DOS implemtation. I HATE IT. We have explored moving them to a new system, and found it will run between $80K and $300K. For no payback other than being assured they have future support. Since they really haven't had any support for the last 5 years, it's kind of hard to convince them to pay that kind of money for no ROI. These ARE accountants after all. So anyway: They have a particular seminar type that can't be handled based on the current system. So they track it outside the system, using Excel. It will cost around $5K to modify the syatem to handle it, or $10K to write a new system based on the new needs, and then lay a foundation for growth. The rewrite is really the best thing to do for the business in the future. Or, I can hack together a series of Perl scripts to read and write the Excel file to exctract the data they need for reporting and update it based on external events. They KNOW this is wrong, I'm the 1st one to tell them. And I would make no money on a rewrite, so it is not like I'm pitching something to make money. But something tells me they'll pay me to band-aid it and keep using the spreadsheet, than any alternative.
Post #212,636 by mmoffitt 6/26/05 11:24:07 AM Reply	PICK on DOS???? Sheesh. bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #214,075 by a6l6e6x 7/8/05 7:33:23 PM Reply	But, it's Box's wet dream! :) Alex The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #214,080 by boxley 7/8/05 8:03:24 PM Reply	nononononono Pick is an OS/DB no DOS required Just call me Mr. Lynch \\ Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #215,356 by mmoffitt 7/18/05 12:37:23 PM Reply	True. But there is uniVerse for *nix. bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #216,193 by Meerkat 7/23/05 12:42:17 AM Reply	Yep, it's still (sort of) the underpinnings for DataStage Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #216,232 by CRConrad 7/24/05 5:30:39 PM Reply	DataStage?Whazzat; that clone of SAS one used to hear about?
Post #216,235 by broomberg 7/24/05 6:13:39 PM Reply	Google. Ever hear of it? [link\|http://www.ascential.com/products/datastage.html\|http://www.ascential...ts/datastage.html]
Post #216,237 by CRConrad 7/24/05 6:23:50 PM Reply	I gots ta hear this "Google" from YOU, mr Saline Scrotum?
Post #216,240 by broomberg 7/24/05 7:14:46 PM Reply	Yup Obviously my Google-Fu is so strong it protects me from the pukey stuff and lets the good tech through!
Post #216,298 by mmoffitt 7/25/05 11:49:19 AM Reply	Huh? We're about to purchase DataStage. My uniVerse background is around a decade old. Why do you say that? Did DS grow up on uniVerse or something? bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #216,444 by Meerkat 7/26/05 8:28:07 AM Reply	Yup, uniVerse was where everything was kept. Jobs, logs, etc Which, for nonuniversians like myself, makes it a right bugger in the few times you have to get into the guts of it to see what it's doing. Datastage, IMO, is fab. Been using it nearly 5 years now, so lemme know if you need any help. Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #216,487 by mmoffitt 7/26/05 11:09:41 AM Reply	Thanks! I'll remember that ;0) bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell

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