from Pierre Leclerc at http://www.excel-vba.com



Excel as Database

Excel is a spreadsheet application but can also be a very interesting database. In fact Excel is the cheapest and the simplest database program on the market and you don't need any special complex training to work with it. But there are two limits to using Excel as a database.

The first one is that only one person at a time can enter data into the database.

The second limit is a matter of quantity of data. Each sheet in an Excel workbook comprises 65,000 rows and 256 columns. An Excel workbook can comprise up to 256 sheet. We are talking about 4,292,608,000 cells.

These limits are not a factor for most small enterprises where a single person is responsible for the database. It is also not a factor for departmental databases in large enterprises. Very valuable data at the department level are not stored in the centralized mega database because they have no "corporate" significance but a departmental personal database can be created and the data used for very critical decisions.

Excel needs to recognize your set of data as an Excel database or you will not have access to any of the database functionalities from the "Data" menu item (Sort, Filter, Form, Subtotal, Pivot Table).

So anybody can develop a database in Excel. You don't need to develop complex forms to enter data, you don't need to develop queries you just use SUMPRODUCT, INDEX/MATCH and SUBTOTAL formulas to develop reports that have the layout that you need by yourself when you need them.

As for the analysis and the reports whatever the database you NEED Excel. A lot of my clients have large centralized databases (EssBase, Oracle, SAP, Sybase, SQL Server...) or large centralized accounting, financial or manufacturing applications (JDE, SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SmartStream...) but the data is analyzed and the reports are developed using Excel. They become really efficient in analyzing and reporting when their employees learn about SUMPRODUCT and INDEX/MATCH formulas. They adopt this approach because Excel is the most user friendly analyzing and reporting application so they don't need to train a few analysts on other reporting applications creating a bottleneck at the report development level. Adopting Excel also allows all the analyst and decision makers to develop significant analysis and reports improving the bottom line of the whole corporation.