Go Beyond Excel to
Analyze Data
5 Strategies For Improving Your Analytics
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There’s no doubt that Excel has been one of the tools of
choice for analysis and reporting. Users love the control
they have, the rapid and easy creation of models and
graphics, and the ability to be both independent and
self-reliant. With Excel, you’re in the driver’s seat. But
just like driving a sports car when what you need is an
SUV, using Excel for analysis means that you’re
over-served in some ways and in others, much underserved. Out-of-date data (and no easy way to update),
error-prone analytics, multiple versions of the same file
circulating among colleagues, too much manual
involvement—these are just a few of the frustrations
commonly associated with Excel. And what of the time
wasted developing your analysis instead of spending
time actually analyzing?
Despite these issues, many departments—and entire
businesses—run on Excel, swearing by it one minute
and swearing at it the next.
There are better ways, from simple improvements you
can make yourself to large scale, enterprise-oriented
changes. This paper focuses primarily on improvements
you can make to improve how you conduct your
analytics without sacrificing the advantages of Excel.
1
Eliminate non-essential
analyses.
Leveraging visual best practices in you analyses means
your reports instinctively become more attrative to your
audience.
2
Be smarter about how
you use Excel.
We’re all so busy doing the same thing over and over
that sometimes we forget to stop and ask, “Is there a
slightly better way?” And, unless you’re a super power
user, when it comes to Excel, there probably is.
•
examples. But don’t just read them. Do them.
Create a spreadsheet with the same data Microsoft
shows in its help and replicate the help files. Doing
will help you more than reading.
You can improve the quality of all of your analytics if you
stop doing so many reports and presentations and just
focus on the ones you and your colleagues need to
•
the exact same problem who has described the
you and your team maintain and then uncover which
answer somewhere on the Internet. Search for
ones matter and how often they require updating. You’ll
“pivot tables”, “Excel add ins”, etc. You’ll be amazed
have a much better idea of the metrics that matter and
at how much there is out there.
the value that’s being provided to the team.
workload and focus on the most important tasks but
you’ll probably also eliminate a lot of previously
unidentified duplicated efforts.
Look for help. For the vast majority of data
problems you have, there is probably someone with
make decisions. Inventory the various analytic reports
As a bonus, not only will you reduce your team’s
Use the online help! Excel has some great
•
Learn the “analysis essentials.” Tasks and
features like “lookup” functions, pivot-tables, the
date functions, find/replace, subtotals, named
ranges and keyboard shortcuts can help speed
your analysis.
•
Evaluate yourself and your team for the
right technical fit. For example, you may be able
Don’t overestimate what other people know about using
to use the “ODBC” driver (Open Database
management and change tracking capabilities. Do you
Connectivity standard) to connect to data
know what percent of people know how to use and
warehouses and centralized databases. This can
comply with them? It’s not many. You can decide you
be effective but the requirements are steep: 1) you
want to be the one to educate the world or you can
must have access; 2) you must know what you’re
decide to do things in very clear, simple ways so that
looking at and 3) you need to be connecting to or
you get back the input you need.
pulling fewer than 1 million rows (for Excel 2010.)
4
So don’t expect your analysts to turn into Excel
macro experts or database programmers. If you
need that kind of help, look to add those skills via
part-time contractors or developers.
3
Be obsessive about the
details
The data challenge today isn’t that people don’t have the
information. It’s the way they get at it, cleanse it and
ensure its integrity. Because everyone does these tasks
Excel. For example, Excel does have some file
Work your internal
resources for better data
access
Now is as good a time as any to start talking to your
colleagues about your data needs and what you’re doing
with Excel. By showing and sharing about your current
analytics, you’ll get good ideas and start setting the
stage for more sophisticated and systematic
approaches.
differently, there are often multiple “versions of the
Make time to start talks with the leaders of your IT
truth.” Excel only makes this worse. When you add in
department. Although many IT executives are busy with
the logical errors made in spreadsheets, we’re talking
security and governance issues, they too would rather
about a lot of potential incorrect or misleading
provide you a more useful, secure approach than
information. In fact, there are industry estimates that
running the many report requests which they know will
90% of spreadsheets contain data or logical errors.
end up in hundreds of Excel files spread across the
Quality checking and clear communication are crucial.
company. (A major concern for some IT groups is the
Obviously, no one’s perfect so never assume you
cleansed your data, wrote your formula or sorted your
data right every time. Do a lot of quality checking along
the way. You have to provide accurate data, and you
must go out of your way to explain where you got it, how
it was calculated and why it might differ from the reports
they’ve been seeing.
Be careful and descriptive about naming, including
column names, file names and version numbers. Good,
clear documentation would be ideal. More attentiveness
to naming and documentation is not going to stop the
problems but it may reduce them.
control and potential elimination of these so-called
“spreadmarts” (a TDWI-coined term describing the
proliferation of Excel files within an organization).) While
it would be naïve to say that your team and your IT
department can easily align goals and resources, you
can start to talk about ways to improve operations.
Some organizations already have complex and underutilized business intelligence platforms available. Much
of the work associated with these BI systems may be
reusable. (The assumption is that your BI systems are
not delivering a high degree of usefulness; otherwise,
you’d already be using them and not Excel.)
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“ The data challenge today
isn’t that people don’t have the
information. It’s the way they
get at it, cleanse it and ensure
its integrity. Because everyone
does these tasks differently,
there are often multiple
“versions of the truth. ”
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swearing by and swearing at excel
So look around. There are tools out there. Ideally, your
analytics would rely on software that is as easy to use
as Excel but that connects directly to your source data.
As an example, Tableau Software (full disclosure—
Tableau is the sponsor of this paper) makes applications
for fast analytics and visualization that connect to
existing Excel spreadsheets, data warehouses and
other data sources. The software combines data
exploration and graphic visualization in an easy-to-use,
highly intuitive application.
The goal is to help people ask rapid questions of their
data and get immediate, real-time answers. Customers
Use visual examples of the kinds of analytics you’re
striving for. By showing and sharing your current analytics, you’ll get good ideas and start setting the stage for
more sophisticated and systematic approaches.
5
Have a plan for upgrading
your analytic efforts to
tools more appropriate
for the job. Be realistic
about Excel’s limitations.
There’s an old saying: when all you’ve got is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail. This applies to analytics and
Excel. Business users often don’t have other, more
appropriate tools and we frequently can’t get the
attention we need from IT. So we end up spending far
too much time and effort trying to make Excel work
when it just isn’t the right application.
have described it as “Excel on steroids.” Bill Attridge of
HTM Corporation said “People using Excel PivotTables
for analysis take note. If you use Tableau once, you’ll
never use an Excel PivotTable again. Tableau is great
for analysis and even makes the work fun.”
In the end…
Some users will never stop swearing by and
simultaneously swearing at Excel. Analytic habits don’t
change overnight. It’s natural to want to use Excel as a
flexible, low-cost method for analytics but we must
recognize its limitations. If you genuinely seek to reduce
the number of analytic reports, learn some new Excel
tricks, pay obsessive attention to quality, collaborate
with your IT department and seek out more robust new
solutions, you will build a stronger, more flexible analytic
environment that will serve your needs well into the
future.
About Tableau
Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Tableau helps anyone quickly analyze, visualize and share
information. More than 21,000 customer accounts get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. And tens
of thousands of people use Tableau Public to share data in their blogs and websites. See how Tableau can help you by
downloading the free trial at www.tableausoftware.com/trial.
© Tableau Software, Inc. 2013. All rights reserved. 837 North 34th Street, Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98103 U.S.A.
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