Spreadsheets Considered Harmful

There's something fundamentally flawed in our IT setup here in the bank. People are going the looong way around to avoid putting anything in a database. Why? It's not complexity, or lack of fit for purpose, or unavailability of tools. Or, for that matter, the marriage of financial people to the spreadsheet model -- they know as well as anyone the limitations of that interface. It's just that the databases are kept locked in the "shared services" locker, and thus unavailable to mere mortals. Mere mortals can control their spreadsheets, though, and struggle hugely -- and expensively -- to make them function as databases. If we can't get anything out of IT in less than six weeks, perhaps we can contact them through the 4th dimensional extension of VBA. Our systems would profit hugely by use of SQL server with a few UI tools. Little databases here and there -- not some monolithic OLTP system, but a few scattered around would be extremely useful. One simple method capsule would be to (a) use Access to develop the prototype (a friendly interface); (b) Upsize the database to SQL Server using the wizard, and (c) throw away the Access part and build the database into something useful using SQL tools. Set them up as a data source (or even use hard network folder pathing) and talk to them via any of the huge range of tools designed for the purpose. Who knows -- the applications may end up being robust, multi-user and scalable, despite being developed by the business group.