Related papers: A Primer on Spreadsheet Analytics
Spreadsheets in financial markets are frequently used as database, calculator and reporting application combined. This paper describes an alternative approach in which spreadsheet design and database technology have been brought together in…
Business intelligence (BI) tools for database analytics have come a long way and nowadays also provide ready insights or visual query explorations, e.g. QuickInsights by Microsoft Power BI, SpotIQ by ThoughtSpot, Zenvisage, etc. In this…
Microsoft Excel is the most ubiquitous analytical tool ever built. Companies around the world leverage it for its power, flexibility and ease of use. However, spreadsheets are manually intensive and prone to error, making it difficult for…
Heavy use of spreadsheets by organisations bears many potential risks such as errors, ambiguity, data loss, duplication, and fraud. In this paper these risks are briefly outlined along with their available mitigation methods such as:…
Spreadsheets are widely used in various fields to do large numerical analysis. While several companies have relied on spreadsheets for decades, data scientists are going in the direction of using scientific programming languages such as…
This paper presents a taxonomy for analytical spreadsheet models. It considers both the use case that a spreadsheet is meant to serve, and the engineering resources devoted to its development. We extend a previous three-type taxonomy, to…
The use of spreadsheets is widespread. Be it in business, finance, engineering or other areas, spreadsheets are created for their flexibility and ease to quickly model a problem. Very often they evolve from simple prototypes to…
Spreadsheets are widely used in industry, even for critical business processes. This implies the need for proper risk assessment in spreadsheets to evaluate the reliability and validity of the spreadsheet's outcome. As related research has…
Spreadsheets are widely recognized as the most popular end-user programming tools, which blend the power of formula-based computation, with an intuitive table-based interface. Today, spreadsheets are used by billions of users to manipulate…
We propose a research strategy for creating and deploying prescriptive recommendations for spreadsheet practice. Empirical data on usage can be used to create a taxonomy of spreadsheet classes. Within each class, existing practices and…
Spreadsheets are used extensively in industry, often for business critical purposes. In previous work we have analyzed the information needs of spreadsheet professionals and addressed their need for support with the transition of a…
Spreadsheet engineering adapts the lessons of software engineering to spreadsheets, providing eight principles as a framework for organizing spreadsheet programming recommendations. Spreadsheets raise issues inadequately addressed by…
We consider the challenge of creating guidelines to evaluate the quality of a spreadsheet model. We suggest four principles. First, state the domain-the spreadsheets to which the guidelines apply. Second, distinguish between the process by…
This paper demonstrates a methodology to help practitioners maximise the utility of complex multidisciplinary engineering models implemented as spreadsheets, an area presenting unique challenges. As motivation we investigate the expanding…
Spreadsheets are known to be error-prone. Over the last decade, research has been done to determine the causes of the high rate of errors in spreadsheets. This paper examines the added value of a spreadsheet tool (PerfectXL) that visualizes…
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…
A demonstration in MS Excel to show how users can connect their spreadsheet models to the external environment that the model represents. We employ indexes to generate a list of relevant evidence that is hyperlinked to the context in which…
We believe the error prone nature of traditional spreadsheets is due to their low level of abstraction. End user programmers are forced to construct their data models from low level cells which we define as "a data container or manipulator…
Accuracy in spreadsheet modelling systems can be reduced due to difficulties with the inputs, the model itself, or the spreadsheet implementation of the model. When the "true" outputs from the system are unknowable, accuracy is evaluated…
The wealth of functionality in the Excel software package means it can go beyond use as a static evaluator of predefined cell formulae, to be used actively in manipulating and transforming data. Due to human error it is impossible to ensure…