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There is no denying that spreadsheets have become critical for all operational processes including financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, and analysis. Microsoft Excel has essentially become a scratch pad and a data browser that can…
Just like other software, spreadsheets can contain significant faults. Static analysis is an accepted and well-established technique in software engineering known for its capability to discover faults. In recent years, a growing number of…
This paper explores the impacts of spreadsheets on business operations in a water utility parastatal in Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation is a typical example of a semi-government body operating in a technologically…
Spreadsheets (sometimes also called Excel programs) are powerful tools which play a business-critical role in many organizations. However, due to faulty spreadsheets many bad decisions have been taken in recent years. Since then, a number…
The paper presents two complementary strategies for identifying errors in spreadsheet programs. The strategies presented are grounded on the assumption that spreadsheets are software, albeit of a different nature than conventional…
Spreadsheet workbook contents are simple programs. Because of this, probabilistic programming techniques can be used to perform Bayesian inversion of spreadsheet computations. What is more, existing execution engines in spreadsheet…
This paper presents the results of an empirical evaluation of the quality of a structured methodology for the development of spreadsheet models, proposed in numerous previous papers by Rajalingham K, Knight B and Chadwick D et al. This…
Refactoring is a change made to the internal structure of software to make it easier to understand and cheaper to modify without changing its observable behaviour. A database refactoring is a small change to the database schema which…
Business rules represent the knowledge that guides the operations of a business organization. They are implemented in software applications used by organizations, and the activity of extracting them from software is known as business rule…
The risks of spreadsheet use do not just come from the misuse of formulae. As such, training needs to go beyond this technical aspect of spreadsheet use and look at the spreadsheet in its full business context. While standard training is by…
The machine learning community currently has no standardized process for documenting datasets, which can lead to severe consequences in high-stakes domains. To address this gap, we propose datasheets for datasets. In the electronics…
This management summary provides an outline of a commercial spreadsheet review process. The aim of this process is to ensure remedial or enhancement work can safely be undertaken on a spreadsheet with a commercially acceptable level of risk…
Research on spreadsheet errors is substantial, compelling, and unanimous. It has three simple conclusions. The first is that spreadsheet errors are rare on a per-cell basis, but in large programs, at least one incorrect bottom-line value is…
Since the calculation engine of Excel was the subject of a major upgrade to accommodate Dynamic Arrays in 2018 there has been a series of seismic changes to the art of building spreadsheet solutions. This paper will show the ad-hoc end user…
Organizations that develop software have recognized that software process models are particularly useful for maintaining a high standard of quality. In the last decade, simulations of software processes were used in several settings and…
The use of spreadsheets in industry is widespread. Companies base decisions on information coming from spreadsheets. Unfortunately, spreadsheets are error-prone and this increases the risk that companies base their decisions on inaccurate…
Although experts diverge on how best to improve spreadsheet quality, it is generally agreed that more time needs to be spent testing spreadsheets. Ideally, experienced and trained spreadsheet engineers would carry this out, but quite often…
The power of mobile devices has increased dramatically in the last few years. These devices are becoming more sophisticated allowing users to accomplish a wide variety of tasks while on the move. The increasingly mobile nature of business…
This paper presents the findings of a case study of spreadsheet use in a higher education institution in the UK. The paper considers the use of spreadsheets in two units of the organisation, academic registry and finance. Spreadsheet use is…
The usual aim of spreadsheet audit is to verify correctness. There are two problems with this: first, it is often difficult to tell whether the spreadsheets in question are correct, and second, even if they are, they may still give the…