Written by Tadd Allar

Dial-up modems, zip drives, and Windows 95 were new to most businesses when Excel became the solution for everything. Need to track tasks? Create a spreadsheet. Want to analyze data? Create a spreadsheet. Companies changed job responsibilities to include Excel skills and hired consultants to help them adopt Excel.

And why not?

For multiple decades, Excel has been the solution for everything. (Except for when somebody made a mistake and deleted or changed something they shouldn’t have. We’ve all been there!)

But What Else is There?

If Excel is still your go-to for data capturing and tracking, I challenge you to explore the possibilities. The software marketplace is full of solutions that are worth looking at. If Excel is already your go to solution for everything, you may already have access to the tools Microsoft has released in the last few years to help businesses rethink what it means to get work done. Office users can combine Microsoft’s Lists, Power Automate, and Power Apps to both save time and resources to accomplish more each day.

Excel still has its place in the business world and my heart, but imagine your business day spent accomplishing tasks instead of entering data into spreadsheets. Think about how much more you could get done if workflows existed to track assigned tasks and data entry needs, email reminders automatically sent, and data entry happens via a user-friendly form versus having to guide somebody to the correct row and column.

Other Teams are Already Moving Away from Excel

Recently we helped a client replace a time-consuming, complicated invoicing process with a modern-day solution. Their process centered initially around using an Excel sheet saved to a network drive to track submitted invoices through payment. An email was manually created and sent to inform others of the new submission for every new invoice. Each time a status change was made, an email was manually created and sent. If a deadline was approaching, nobody was notified, and if the deadline was missed, it wasn’t caught until a manual review of the document was completed.

By helping them rethink the typical scenario of “this is how we always have done it,” together we created a new solution centered around a Power App interface. The solution uses a Microsoft List in place of Excel, allowing the data to be accessible from anywhere (no need to be in the office or on VPN). The Power App is designed as a workflow enabling staff to see where each invoice is in the process quickly. Using Power Automate, emails are automatically sent as deadlines approach, statuses change, or deadlines missed. The client’s favorite part of the solution is that the app is embedded within the team’s primary Microsoft Teams’ channel to provide quick and easy access.

Now, It’s Your Turn

I won’t mislead you by saying the transition away from Excel will be seamless, but neither was the transition to Excel (many of us don’t remember a time before everything was tracked on spreadsheets).

You don’t need to take my word on why it is time to rethink your processes. Take a moment away from correcting your spreadsheet and search the internet. You will find a plethora of ideas and tutorials on how you can move your business into the 2020s. Don’t have the time or expertise in-house to begin? Contact Momentum to discuss the possibilities!

Written by Tadd Allar

My career path was defined in 1996 when I first answered the phone with “Good Morning and thanks for calling MindSpring Technical Support. My name is Tadd. How can I help you today?” I cut my teeth on internet tech support in the mid-90s – Windows 95 was new, 28.8 modems were the best it got, and everybody knew they needed to be on the internet. And for those of us who were fortunate (or maybe it is crazy) enough to be the internet access gatekeepers of the dial-up world, we all knew why everybody needed online. It wasn’t for pictures of food!

25+ years later, and I still enjoy helping others overcome their tech hurdles. Today the “I don’t hear a dial tone” call from grandmas is replaced with supporting government leaders and their teams with software requirements, purchasing or design, and implementation.

The answers aren’t as easy today as they were at the beginning of my career. However, I still enjoy helping others overcome tech. But one answer is still as true today as it did back then – Reboot and try again.