When Excel is no longer enough

In almost every medium-sized company there is an Excel file on which too much depends. It has grown over the years, only one person really understands it, and nobody dares to touch it. As long as it works, that is not an issue — until someone is unavailable, the company grows or several people have to work with it at the same time. The way forward is rarely a large system. Usually it is a small application that maps precisely this one process cleanly. Situations we encounter regularly. In no particular order — each case stands on its own. A central process depends on a file that only one person understands. Working on it simultaneously leads to conflicts, and there is no history. The process is recorded as it actually is — not as it is documented — and implemented as an application with permissions, history and simultaneous access. The special cases. Every file that has grown over time contains exceptions that nobody can name any more. Anyone who discovers them only at go-live has an acceptance problem. Data is transferred by hand between two applications because there is no connection and both vendors point at each other. A lean intermediate layer that serves both sides — without changing either system. Error handling. What happens if a system does not respond? Without a clean answer to that, silent data losses occur. A procedure is typical of the industry or specific to the business. Standard solutions fit seventy per cent, and the remaining thirty are precisely the ones that matter. Start small. The first version should do one process well, not five mediocrely.