It’s So True
I’m not sure what InfoPath is (yet) but this post on how much business logic is in Excel is so true. Now to figure out what he’s talking about.
…Read a bit more about InfoPath from Microsoft here. Perhaps a client side form for event entry via XML would make our users happy…:) Anyways I know the challenges of this system but it’s a very interesting idea. Office documents and forms that users are comfortable with but that also communicate with a proper database in a structured way. A little bit of hype I’m sure from Microsoft but they are on to something with this awareness of what is trapped inside Excel.
I’ve been to so many huge companies that are running millions of dollars worth of business on Excel. These are incredibly brilliant companies (well some of them)…and to dismiss the business logic that has been captured by users in Excel is just bad business. I think a lot of my job is to work with customers to move from that path of data in Excel to systems that are database backed…the problem and challenge for us is duplicating or improving on that Excel user experience.