The parallel spreadsheet
A spreadsheet used alongside the system is a useful research source. Ask which task it supports, why it is outside the product and whether that arrangement causes avoidable risk or effort.
Reasons may include a missing workflow, integration needs, independent analysis, permissions, performance or an intentional export process.
Table of Contents
Summarize with:
Key facts
- Users keeping spreadsheets next to the product is one of the signals that a redesign is due.
- Exports and spreadsheets identify tasks to investigate; measure the proportion of task instances completed outside the product directly.
- In planning, it usually means planners distrust parameters they cannot see.
- In regulatory reporting, it usually means a field is missing from a capture flow.
How to spot it
- Weekly exports of the same data
- Figures quoted in meetings that the system cannot show
- Planning done outside the system and entered afterwards
- Users export a report to a spreadsheet to read it
- Users export records, act on them outside the system and import the results
- Exports are used in place of screens that time out on real data
Why it happens
The spreadsheet appears where a role needs something the screen does not give it. Common sources:
| Where | What the spreadsheet replaces |
|---|---|
| Production planning | Comparison of orders, resources and dates at once. Planners re-running MRP and exporting to spreadsheets usually distrust parameters they cannot see. |
| Regulatory reporting | A field that capture screens never recorded, rebuilt by hand before submission |
| Long reports | A structure between the whole report and a single item |
| Repeated decisions | A bulk action for records that share a cause |
| Historical data | A screen that requests all data and stops working at scale |
After release
Can the planner stop maintaining a private spreadsheet?
The test for a planning screen follows from this: after release, can the planner stop maintaining a private spreadsheet?
What it costs
- Reconstruction. When capture flows record the required fields, a regulatory report takes minutes to assemble. When they miss fields, it becomes a monthly reconstruction. A field found missing at month-end cannot be recaptured, because the event it describes has passed.
- Two versions of the truth. Figures quoted in meetings come from the spreadsheet and cannot be checked in the system.
- Late data. Planning done outside the system is entered afterwards.
Where it shows up
- Role-based production interfaces
- MRP and production planning
- Regulatory and government reporting
- The report is too long to be read
- The same action repeats across a dozen similar records
- The system slows down on historical data
- When should B2B software be redesigned?
- How do you measure a B2B software redesign?