Related papers: Requirements for Automated Assessment of Spreadshe…

This paper outlines an approach to manage and quantify the risks associated with changes made to spreadsheets. The methodology focuses on structural differences between spreadsheets and suggests a technique by which a risk analysis can be…

Spreadsheets are the go-to tool for computerized calculation and modelling, but are hard to comprehend and adapt after reaching a certain complexity. In general, cognition of complex systems is facilitated by having a higher order mental…

This paper discusses spreadsheets documentation and new means to achieve this end by using Excel's built-in "Comment" function. By structuring comments, they can be used as an essential tool to fully explain spreadsheet. This will greatly…

Previous research on spreadsheet risks has predominantly focussed on errors inadvertently introduced by spreadsheet writers i.e. it focussed on the end-user aspects of spreadsheet development. When analyzing a faulty spreadsheet, one might…

Most spreadsheet surveys both for reporting use and error focus on the practical application of the spreadsheet in a particular industry. Typically these studies will illustrate that a particular percentage of spreadsheets are used for…

There is an overlooked iceberg of problems in end user computing. Spreadsheets are developed by people who are very skilled in their main job function, be it finance, procurement, or production planning, but often have had no formal…

Logs are semi-structured text generated by logging statements in software source code. In recent decades, software logs have become imperative in the reliability assurance mechanism of many software systems because they are often the only…

Auditors demand financial models be transparent yet no consensus exists on what that means precisely. Without a clear modeling transparency definition we cannot know when our models are "transparent". The financial modeling community…

Sustainability is an increasingly-studied topic in software engineering in general, and in software architecture in particular. There are already a number of secondary studies addressing sustainability in software engineering, but no such…

Spreadsheets are used extensively within today's organisations. Although spreadsheets have many benefits, they can also present a significant risk exposure, requiring appropriate management. Protiviti has worked with a number of…

Recognizing that the use of spreadsheets within finance will likely not subside in the near future, this paper discusses a major barrier that is preventing more organizations from adopting enterprise spreadsheet management programs. But…

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…

This paper offers a brief review of cognitive verbs typically used in the literature to describe standard spreadsheet practices. The verbs identified are then categorised in terms of Bloom's Taxonomy of Hierarchical Levels, and then rated…

In this paper, we report some on-going focused research, but are further keen to set it in the context of a proposed bigger picture, as follows. There is a certain depressing pattern about the attitude of industry to spreadsheet error…

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…

This paper provides guidance to an analyst who wants to extract insight from a spreadsheet model. It discusses the terminology of spreadsheet analytics, how to prepare a spreadsheet model for analysis, and a hierarchy of analytical…

We present a widely-used operations management model used in supply and distribution planning, that is typically embedded in a periodic business process that necessitates model modification and reuse. We consider three alternative…

Spreadsheets provide a flexible and easy to use software development environment, but that leads to error proneness. Work has been done to prevent errors in spreadsheets, including using models to specify distinct parts of a spreadsheet as…

Errors in spreadsheet applications and models are alarmingly common (some authorities, with justification cite spreadsheets containing errors as the norm rather than the exception). Faced with this body of evidence, the auditor can be faced…

The first fully-documented study into the quantitative impact of errors in operational spreadsheets identified an interesting anomaly. One of the five participating organisations involved in the study contributed a set of five spreadsheets…