Electronic Spreadsheets started way back in 1979 with the launch of VisiCalc. These days we don’t put the word electronic in front of Spreadsheet. Most people just assume that we mean spreadsheet software and usually Excel. The spreadsheet became the world’s first killer application. Something so desirable that people would buy the correct hardware just to run it.
Spreadsheets are useful and are everywhere doing all kinds of jobs. For many, they are the first port of call when managing information.
Businesses everywhere are bursting with spreadsheets.
But that is changing.
Spreadsheets are very good at laying out information and applying expressions to that data. This flexibility is the key to their success.
What they are not good at is being a database. Many use them as a ‘database’. But it’s not something spreadsheets excel (Sorry), at and are indeed quite error-prone.
Report generation follows the same pattern. Don’t get me wrong, spreadsheet-generated reports can look good and be accurate. But creating them can be time-consuming and easy to make mistakes with.
Newer solutions to these problems are eating away at the dominance of the spreadsheet.
I will highlight two pieces of software that reduce the use of spreadsheets. If you look, you will find others.
SharePoint Lists
At first sight, SharePoint lists look a lot like spreadsheets used to manage tables of data. Dig a little deeper and there’s useful flexibility there. Including:
- Flexible views. A view is a way of rearranging the columns in a list to suit a requirement. Users select views from a menu. Use a view and the list changes. Letting us adapt the list to the different tasks it is being used for. Views can include:
- Single click varying of the lists display.
- Activating pre-build filters to view only relevant information, again on a single menu selection
- Changing how the view looks to include calendar displays for comparing dates or viewing items in cards for ease of reading
- Switching from one set of conditional formatting to another as you change how to look at the data.
- Easy to add reminders. There’s a reminder functionality built into SharePoint Lists. Need to receive an email alert a few days before a date? That’s built in.
- Adding documents to individual rows. Each row in a list can reference file attachments. Need data plus files? Then a list may be the way to go.
Power BI
Powered by a relational model, Power BI reports are visual and very easy to drill into data with. The aim here is to transform tables of data into something that is easier to understand. Reporting is best distributed in a browser. Power BI reports put the focus on information, not on the application itself. You don’t have to know Power BI to use one of these reports. You just have to understand what the report is trying to say.
Please note that I’m using the word report here as a bit of catch-all that includes Power BI reports, dashboards, apps, and scorecards. A Power BI report is a bit like an application. Data comes in, gets processed, and then users interactively choose how to adjust what they need to see. It can be an automated and fast process. Much quicker than preparing a report in a spreadsheet.
The word report does hint at a big difference between spreadsheets and Power BI. Spreadsheets exist as very open problem-solving tools. It’s easier to change data on a spreadsheet than it is to lock it down and manage change. I’m not saying control of data in a spreadsheet is impossible. Just that their heritage is that of anything can be changed. Power BI takes the opposite route. Only authorised users can make changes. Most Power BI users can utilise the report and that’s all. Control of data integrity is built in.
Users must remember one caveat with Power BI’s data controls. It’s this. Power BI imports data. It has powerful data cleanup tools, but these cannot fix errors made at the source.
That said, speed, automation and data safety continue to drive companies towards using Power BI.
Comparing all Three Approaches
By now, we have an idea why spreadsheets are popular and why alternatives have emerged. Let’s try a point-based breakdown of all three. I’m limiting it to three(ish) points only. Otherwise, we would end up with some very long lists.
Spreadsheets
- Designed, for a high degree of flexibility.
- A Trained operator gets the best results. Although, most people can use a spreadsheet.
- Good integration into a wide range of systems
SharePoint Lists
- Good for flat file “databases”.
- Setup by a skilled operator is recommended, but SharePoint List design skills are not required for day-to-day operation.
- Good integration into Microsoft 365.
Power BI
- A high degree of flexibility in report delivery.
- A trained operator is recommended for report creation. Understanding of the data is recommended for using the reports.
- Integrates into a wide range of existing systems for data import.
This helps us see the diversity amongst these three approaches. Spreadsheets are a Swiss Army knife. SharePoint Lists or Power BI effectively take on different types of work. Now we can see why there is a decrease in using spreadsheets. People are simply choosing the best tool for the job. We’ve moved from a world where one thing does everything, to one where we have a larger toolkit. Choices drive change and that’s why the spreadsheet is falling from its perch. We simply have other options now.