It’s Annual Budget time this week in Ireland, and much drama and pageantry is played out. In many ways a budget from government is an exercise in managing expectations. The same is true perhaps in a practical sense with spreadsheets. “How is that result arrived at?”...
At first glance, they may seem pretty unremarkable – who pays attention to spreadsheet file properties? It’s noteworthy that the Spreadsheet Safe training and certification programme suggests they have quite a level of importance. Let’s see why: At a software level, MS show them on the...
The term ‘version’ refers to a particular state or stage of design in the development of an application. A ‘release’ is a version that has been issued (released) for use. In the spreadsheet world, these distinctions are largely blurred because there is not the same...
Pause a moment before reading on, and think how you would answer this question: “How much documentation is enough?” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said “Perfection is not reached when there is nothing more to be added, but when there is nothing more to be removed.” In...
Patrick O’Beirne considers whether the humble spreadsheet is always ‘fit-for-purpose’ It has been said that the spreadsheet is the ‘second best’ way to do any data processing. In their professional training, many practitioners would recognise common line-of-business applications like accounting and payroll packages. That said, for...
I am delighted to welcome you to the new Spreadsheet Safe website, and this our first blog post today from our new location. We hope you will find the new website easy to use and navigate. Our aim is to make the site a resource for...