The advantages of using a database over excel spreadsheets ?
Most businesses today need to record and store information on a regular basis – sometimes this might be purely for record keeping and sometimes it will be to store information for later use – such as the recording of performance figures for later analysis. This is no surprise as that’s really what computers are for – they make storing and manipulating large amounts of data extremely easy.
One of the most common programs that is used for this task – for small businesses at least – is Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program and has many database like qualities – in fact it is extremely easy to turn Excel into a sort of database simply by setting up headings across each column and then adding data to the corresponding rows.
ď śOnce you have the data in excel it is easy to perform basic functions such as adding up the data in rows and columns as well as sorting the data by various metrics – for example a column of customer names could easily be sorted into alphabetical order.
Unfortunately there are many limitations with Excel that don’t become apparent until much further down the line – and by this stage a lot of time has been invested in creating and updating the spreadsheet making it harder to move away from that method.
Some of the common pitfalls that come with using Excel are as follows: Excel is a two dimensional spreadsheet and so it is very difficult to create relationships between data in different spreadsheets Because the data tends to be stored in a single spreadsheet which is visible in full to the user it becomes hard to read once it gets past a certain size – you tend to find that you are scrolling through hundreds of entries when trying to find a particular record
Although Excel spreadsheets can be shared, enabling concurrent editing, it is not a native feature of Excel and can become unwieldy Excel is not an efficient database engine and so spreadsheets can become large, slow and unstable when they grow beyond a certain size Because excel stores the data and the “frontend” of the spreadsheet in a single file it is harder to back up efficiently
ď śWhat are the alternatives to using Excel? ď śThere are quite a few alternatives to using Excel but by far the best alternative is to use a database driven application. One of the most common database models is MySQL which usually comes with a web based front end for inputting data.
ď śThere are many advantages to using a database over an Excel spreadsheet, some of them include: ď śData is stored separately from the user interface making the system much more robust and scalable ď śThe data is far easier to manipulate and the user can be presented with only the required information rather than the entire data set
Data can easily be cross referenced between multiple databases by using relationships MySQL operates on a centralised data storage system which is much easier to back up and maintain A database can be accessed simultaneously by as many users as required
ď śDatabases can be developed with advanced functionality such as change previsioning, restricted access and file attachment facilities ď śDatabase systems tend to be much faster because they are built for storing and manipulating large datasets where Excel is not
ď śDatabases can be developed with advanced functionality such as change previsioning, restricted access and file attachment facilities ď śDatabase systems tend to be much faster because they are built for storing and manipulating large datasets where Excel is not
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