The article Eleven BI trends for 2011 caught my eye this week. The author does state that the 11 points are in no particular order but the first in the list is this:
Excel hell still predominates. IT might hate Microsoft Excel, but it really is the choice of tool for most businesspeople. They love the freedom and individual choice it confers on them – even though it can create multiple versions of the truth. Best advice: accept the fact that users want Excel, introduce best practices, and ensure that all instances of Excel run against a single version of the truth. Spreadmarts aren't management's or non-Microsoft vendors' flavour of the day, but users can't be fought forever.
(emphasis is my own)
It's interesting to see this recognised as a point for the coming year as it's exactly what QVExcel, a product we released at the end of 2010, aims to help support.
We appreciate that as far as is possible it can be preferable for QlikView to be used in place of Excel but, as the piece suggests, 'users can't be faught forever' - or more in line with our experience, there can still be scenarios where the layout and formatting requirements for a report can't quite match the flexibility and 'pixel-perfect' opportunities offered by Excel.
We've just produced the following short 6 minute video which walks through the main features of QVExcel and finishes up showing some typical financial reports which can quickly be built using the Add-in (QVExcel is a simple Add-in to Excel). There is of course more information, screenshots and a free trial available over at the website.
