Spreadsheets As Containers

Let me say this upfront: I’m a fan of spreadsheets.

Not a big fan mind you and certainly not a fan of the stranglehold that Microsoft has on the spreadsheet market with Excel, but a fan nonetheless. The usefulness of spreadsheets has been proven over the years when used for budgets, numbers modeling or anything pertaining to numbers and formulas.

So it’s a little curious to me that it has taken a new role – spreadsheet as data container.

To understand why I find this interesting might require a little explanation.

For the better part of my professional career I’ve moved data around. Large amounts of data. There have been databases in DB2, Oracle, MySQL, and even IMS flavors. I’ve used ISAM and VSAM and MQ and XML and flat files. If it’s large and enterprise then I’ve probably written code to extract, transform or load it.

That’s how business moves data.

But the interesting thing is those are all big company concerns. Small companies don’t have the budget to hire staff to create systems like big companies do yet still find the need to move data, athough in a low cost way.

Spreadsheets to the rescue. They have structure and named elements.

Yes, XML has that too. But how many small businesses understand how to parse XML let alone have budget for someone who does? When it comes down to it, the easiest solution wins. Spreadsheets have become the de-facto transfer method for small business.

Maybe you’re thinking that’s a stretch? If you’ve ever ordered any leads lists, or as some call them – farm reports – then you know how they’re delivered. You got it. Spreadsheets.

Larger companies build systems to transfer data then create interfaces to work with the data once loaded. No company mindful of its users would dare present the same system for both transfer and use. Yet small businesses often have no choice.

So what to do?

You knew this was coming – import your leads into the Leads Manager. The spreadsheet has served its purpose and is really of no further use when working leads lists. The Leads Manager presents an effective interface for working with the data. Until now mortgage brokers have struggled with using the spreadsheet for dual purposes because there was no better solution.

The Leads Manager takes care of providing an interface for users to work with once the data is loaded. Just like big companies. And that process is just good business – big or small.