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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