Five signs your spreadsheet might smell (and what you can do about it)
summary
Five concrete spreadsheet smells and how to fix them: confounding concerns (mixing data, calculations and UI) — replace with Power BI/Tableau for visuals, or move logic into R/Python and use the sheet only for inputs/outputs; prodigious proportions (millions of rows) — use SQLite or a server RDBMS and serve via BI or a web app; version chaos — binary Excel files resist true git diffs; use code + version control for calculations; fishy formulas — replace nested formulas with tested scripts; mapping mistakes — collect coordinates and use QGIS or proper spatial formats. Public Health England’s loss of ~16,000 COVID records and Excel’s gene name problem illustrate the stakes.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction to spreadsheet smells
- 1:27What are spreadsheet smells
- 3:13First smell: Confounding concerns
- 6:49Second smell: Prodigious proportions
- 8:34Third smell: Versioning chaos
- 9:38Fourth smell: Fishy formulas
- 11:44Fifth smell: Mapping mess
- 13:30When to stop using spreadsheets
- 15:16Q&A session
