I work in a company where there are Excel spreadsheets everywhere. As my colleagues are non-programmers, I'm sure they haven't contemplated that there might be a better/easier/more productive way of managing their data. Naturally, I advocate an application of sorts that can leverage the features you find in relational databases and interactive front ends, tailored to the needs of the various workflows currently distributed over disparate spreadsheets.

The problem I have is that I have tried to explain the merits of such systems to various parties, but short of actually writing them from scratch I'm having a hard time convincing them, or even just exposing them to the greener grass. People in general understand Excel (even if they aren't power users) but perhaps go all fuzzy when the word 'database' pops up or you start talking about 'code'.

Can anyone suggest a method, with evidence of how a workflow was improved by switching from spreadsheets to an actual application?

UPDATE

Thanks to everyone for their replies. It seems that there are no textbook methods as such, more a range of philosophical approaches to the problem i.e. the problem isn't that Excel is profligate, the problem is in how to communicate the fact that there are sometimes better tools for the job.

I work in a company where there are Excel spreadsheets everywhere. As my colleagues are non-programmers, I'm sure they haven't contemplated that there might be a better/easier/more productive way of managing their data. Naturally, I advocate an application of sorts that can leverage the features you find in relational databases and interactive front ends, tailored to the needs of the various workflows currently distributed over disparate spreadsheets.

The problem I have is that I have tried to explain the merits of such systems to various parties, but short of actually writing them from scratch I'm having a hard time convincing them, or even just exposing them to the greener grass. People in general understand Excel (even if they aren't power users) but perhaps go all fuzzy when the word 'database' pops up or you start talking about 'code'.

Can anyone suggest a method, with evidence of how a workflow was improved by switching from spreadsheets to an actual application?

I work in a company where there are Excel spreadsheets everywhere. As my colleagues are non-programmers, I'm sure they haven't contemplated that there might be a better/easier/more productive way of managing their data. Naturally, I advocate an application of sorts that can leverage the features you find in relational databases and interactive front ends, tailored to the needs of the various workflows currently distributed over disparate spreadsheets.

The problem I have is that I have tried to explain the merits of such systems to various parties, but short of actually writing them from scratch I'm having a hard time convincing them, or even just exposing them to the greener grass. People in general understand Excel (even if they aren't power users) but perhaps go all fuzzy when the word 'database' pops up or you start talking about 'code'.

Can anyone suggest a method, with evidence of how a workflow was improved by switching from spreadsheets to an actual application?

I work in a company where there are Excel spreadsheets everywhere. As my colleagues are non-programmers, I'm sure they haven't contemplated that there might be a better/easier/more productive way of managing their data. Naturally, I advocate an application of sorts that can leverage the features you find in relational databases and interactive front ends, tailored to the needs of the various workflows currently distributed over disparate spreadsheets.

The problem I have is that I have tried to explain the merits of such systems to various parties, but short of actually writing them from scratch I'm having a hard time convincing them, or even just exposing them to the greener grass. People in general understand Excel (even if they aren't power users) but perhaps go all fuzzy when the word 'database' pops up or you start talking about 'code'.

Can anyone suggest a method, with evidence of how a workflow was improved by switching from spreadsheets to an actual application?

UPDATE

Thanks to everyone for their replies. It seems that there are no textbook methods as such, more a range of philosophical approaches to the problem i.e. the problem isn't that Excel is profligate, the problem is in how to communicate the fact that there are sometimes better tools for the job.