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Excel 2007 Preview - Is the upgrade worth it? By John Stokdyk

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16th Nov 2006
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Throughout 2006, there has been a steady flow of rumour, debate and educational material about the new version of Excel 2007. The debate will intensify at the end of November, when the first commercial shipments of Office 2007 go out to corporate customers and the campaign begins to convince users to upgrade.

Consumers will have to wait until the New Year to get their copies.

The Excel 2007 'Ribbon' interface
Simon Hurst and John Francis have questioned the value of enhancements such as the new Ribbon interface, to which Paul White, UK business group leader for Microsoft Dynamics responded: "It might be true that power users won't get more out of Excel 2007, but the average user might get more out of it because it exposes a lot more to them. Office 2007 makes it possible for ordinary users to do what experts used to do."

For further background on the Excel and Office 2007 interface, see:

  • Excel 2007 look and feel previewed
  • Excel 2007 unlikely to please accountants
  • The Excel 2007 interface - Case for the defence, Part 1 by David Carter
  • The Excel 2007 interface - Case for the defence, Part 2
  • Excel 2007 - A developer's view
  • Office 2007: Stick or twist? by Simon Hurst
  • Windows Vista? I'll stick by Alan Wright
  • A CPA's overview By Christopher J Wood
  • Conference report: One step forward, 10 years back?
  • Excel as the front-end for business intelligence
    A constant theme invoked by Microsoft executives and its resellers is that Excel is the front-end client for deriving business intelligence from the data in your transactional systems. The best way to take advantage of these features is to upgrade to the latest versions of all the relevant products: Office 2007, SQL Server 2005 and the various Dyamics family upgrades. And capabilities in this area will continue to evolve as Microsoft refines its BI product range. Here are some background articles explaining how this strategy has evolved over the past two years (most recent first):

  • Excel 2007 will open the door on ERP data, says Microsoft
  • Spreadsheets reach into web services
  • Office 2007 and Microsoft's business intelligence strategy
  • Charts in Excel 2007 are more than just 'eye candy'
  • Balanced Scorecard Manager - Microsoft's BI prototype
  • Excel 'at the hub' of Microsoft BI strategy
  • SQL Server 2005 preview: BI for the masses
  • New PivotTable features
    Making pivot tables more accessible to users was one of the main objectives of the Excel 2007 interface design, which introduces a new Pivot Table Field Pane in place of the old Layout wizard. ExcelZone's resident pivot table king David Carter commented: "I think the idea of collecting the icons for a particular task into one place is a good one, but I'm still more comfortable with the old Layout box." He added that many of us will have to relearn a few things before we can appreciate what the new version of Excel can do - so look out for Excel 2007 tips, guides and tutorials in the near future.

  • Excel 2007 - A new approach to PivotTables
  • Navigation tips for new look Excel pivot Drop Zone
  • Pivot tables to get overhaul in Excel 12
  • Other new enhancements

  • Excel 2007 Tables - Not just a pretty format
  • Excel 2007 - Get ahead with conditional formatting
  • Excel 2007 SUMIFS(): The accountant's favourite Excel function gets an overhaul
  • New Range Name features in Excel 2007
  • ExcelZone Compendium - ExcelZone's 2007 coverage

    Performance and compliance issues
    Excel has become the bete noir of auditors and compliance managers, particularly in the wake of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sets such stringent requirements for internal control that the free-and-easy spreadsheet that users love fails to come up to scratch. Microsoft has taken note, and many of the reporting features it is adding to the Excel/BI toolset are specifically designed to neutralise the compliance criticisms.

    As usual, Excel 2007 is a bigger, hungrier beast than its predecessor, so a recent Microsoft whitepaper offered some highly technical insights into improving spreadsheet design for better performance.

  • A power-user's guide to boosting Excel 2007 performance
  • Excel MVP issues counterblast in the compliance debate
  • Microsoft tackles Excel compliance
  • Microsoft resources
    Nobody can call Microsoft coy or unenthusiastic when it comes to promoting the capabilities of its new products. There is a mountain of information, including video tutorials and other downloads on the Microsoft Office 2007 homepage. Here are some Excel 2007 highlights:

  • Office Rocker - blog of Darren Strange, UK product manager for Office 2007
  • David Gainer's Excel blog - Excel team leader's view
  • Microsoft.com's UK Excel home page
  • Migrating to Excel 2007 - Downloadable white paper
  • Excel Community - MSDN page
  • The ExcelZone verdict - so far
    Excel 2007 has some very attractive elements - particularly on the business intelligence side and if you are willing to buy into the whole Microsoft "technology stack" for tools such as SharePoint Services (intranet portals in which you can publish Excel snippets) and SQL Server's Analysis Services (online analytical reporting cubes for no extra cost).

    But the jury is still out on the 2007 edition as far as ExcelZone is concerned. Microsoft currently has so many tools available that it's hard to know which one to pick in a particular situation. And there is always the possibility that the developer is creating even bigger and more complex traps for unwary accountants who fancy doing a bit of DIY reporting with their spreadsheets.

    To reach a more rounded view, ExcelZone will be seeking out some of the pioneers who have taken on the new reporting tools and worked out the best way to apply them. If you have any observations, feel free to add them below using the Post Comment button.

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    Replies (3)

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    avatar
    By carpentermr
    19th Apr 2007 14:00

    Excel 2007 - Pivot table Hell
    I tried the trial version of Excel 2007 when my existing spreadsheets were maxing out due to the number of lines. The spreadsheet is a 50mb file of data, pivot tables and reports that produce a 24 page management pack.

    I found it hard to get to grips with the new interface, and in typical Microsoft fashion, trying to make things easier (like the handling of external data sources and pivot tables) I found actually make it harder - and maybe even worse.

    Overall though, like most upgrades, with a bit of perseverance you can make it work - not a killer upgrade, but maybe a necessity when you need 65K plus lines.

    HOWEVER - it then crashed.

    The recover option was a joke (as I had upgraded a 2003 spreadsheet to 2007 it decided that it couldn't accurately recover the whole of the spreadsheet), and when, after a fruitless afternoon of trying to get the thing back I decided to save it back to 2003 and work on it there - it said I couldn't as it can't handle reverting pivot tables.

    I suppose I will try again going forward to Excel 2007 again in the future, but with a clean canvass of a spreadsheet and put myself in Boot camp to re-learn everything I thought was right, but now has changed (and not always for the better).

    Thanks (0)
    John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
    By John Stokdyk
    01st May 2007 16:56

    Microsoft would be interested to hear from you
    Michael,

    You are probably not alone in your frustration. Microsoft Excel 2007 programme leader David Gainer recently asked for people to send him sample spreadsheets to help them speed up pivot tables.

    I'll do a short write up for ExcelZone about this, but you can find out more from David's Excel 2007 blog

    Thanks for your feedback.

    John Stokdyk
    Technology editor
    AccountingWEB.co.uk

    Thanks (0)
    avatar
    By AnonymousUser
    31st May 2007 21:53

    No
    As an ageing accountant I've used Excel and most of it's advanced features (pivots/querytables) vba etc for donkeys years.

    When I heard Excel was going to have 1 million rows in the new version I was delighted. But when I saw the mess that had been made of the, previously menu driven, interface I was shocked... Whoever came up with that one should try walking on his hands for a few days and see how he feels.

    In all the years I have been using Excel I have never got hold of a new version and thought... sod it I'll stick with what I've got. If I really need a million rows, i'll use a pivot, cube, or just revert to a bit more SQL or Access... or a text file.

    Aside from that, MS need to understand Accountants are busy people; under pressure, fighting to get the numbers out each month... the last thing they want is to have to get to try and get to grips with some new ribbon thingy whilst they've got the CEO breathing down their neck for the results at the month end.

    One positive thought, sooner or later some bright spark will come up with an add-in that gets rid of all that ribbon rubbish and gives us back the simple menu with the commands available clearly printed on it!

    Thanks (0)