Current Events > Trying to teach certain types of people to use a database is so frustrating

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sales guy: How do I print off a list of every lead who no one has called in 6 months?
Me: Rather than printing off a list, just run a search criteria. And then work through the list in the system.
Sales guy: No no I need a report, I need to see it in front of me so that I can work through the list with a pencil.
Me: We can do that, but you're basically doubling up your work and then your information is now in two different places.
Sales guy: I just really like the feel of paper, you know?

*6 months later*
Sales guy: Ok so we need to have a talk about why the data is so out of date

/headdesk

Build him a tableau or something lol

I'm the sales guy

Talk to your management about getting some kind of business intelligence product where people like him can click on one button and make a printable report and he can waste as much paper as he wants without bothering you.

Is that an episode of the IT crowd?

I'm in no way the person that people should go through for this. I have a moderate level of excel understanding. Still, I just build people a tab in excel that has what they want in it. Thankfully, for our database we can export a tab delimited file that they can just drag into it without much help.

The bad part is that I've only been with this place half a year and no one else thought of this. It's a nationally high ranking hospital

Jiek_Fafn posted...

I'm in no way the person that people should go through for this. I have a moderate level of excel understanding. Still, I just build people a tab in excel that has what they want in it. Thankfully, for our database we can export a tab delimited file that they can just drag into it without much help.

The bad part is that I've only been with this place half a year and no one else thought of this. It's a nationally high ranking hospital

Dude, my dad was a systems implementation consultant for Deloitte, he knew Fortune 500 companies that had their entire financials system run on Excel spreadsheets.

Jiek_Fafn posted...

I'm in no way the person that people should go through for this. I have a moderate level of excel understanding. Still, I just build people a tab in excel that has what they want in it. Thankfully, for our database we can export a tab delimited file that they can just drag into it without much help.

The bad part is that I've only been with this place half a year and no one else thought of this. It's a nationally high ranking hospital

I work for a Carnegie 1 research level university and yea, the amount of static files we pass around because no one wants to or knows how to make implementations work is ASTOUNDING.

ejolson posted...

Dude, my dad was a systems implementation consultant for Deloitte, he knew Fortune 500 companies that had their entire financials system run on Excel spreadsheets.

ejolson posted...

I work for a Carnegie 1 research level university and yea, the amount of static files we pass around because no one wants to or knows how to make implementations work is ASTOUNDING.

????

AlphaWhelp posted...

Talk to your management about getting some kind of business intelligence product where people like him can click on one button and make a printable report and he can waste as much paper as he wants without bothering you.

The issue isn't how we create the report, it's how people like this take information out of the database, do something with it and then don't put it back in. So now the list of "clients we haven't called in 6 months" is wildly out of date because sales guy called them all last week and didn't update anything.

pinky0926 posted...

The issue isn't how we create the report, it's how people like this take information out of the database, do something with it and then don't put it back in. So now the list of "clients we haven't called in 6 months" is wildly out of date because sales guy called them all last week and didn't update anything.

Oh yeah there's no fixing that.

ejolson posted...

Dude, my dad was a systems implementation consultant for Deloitte, he knew Fortune 500 companies that had their entire financials system run on Excel spreadsheets.

So I work in implementation of these sorts of systems. If you don't make someone's life easier than using excel then they will ALWAYS use excel.

Sometimes "making life easier" has to mean "use the system or you're fired", sadly.

pinky0926 posted...

So I work in implementation of these sorts of systems. If you don't make someone's life easier than using excel then they will ALWAYS use excel.

Sometimes "making life easier" has to mean "use the system or you're fired", sadly.

Youre a step ahead of where I'm at. I've watched people manually add up columns in excel with a physical calculator to then input into their total cell. Our database itself is "too fancy" for them even though there are buttons in it to do this shit for them. Thankfully, they at least understand the concept of updating things in the system so other people can look it up accurately

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


My favourite is when people get fired for using the system unaware that people can very easily investigate exactly how they're using the system.

Like the time a guy was going into bank account records and changing the details to his own bank account so that he'd be paid invoices directly

Incredible that he thought he'd get away with this tbh

pinky0926 posted...

So I work in implementation of these sorts of systems. If you don't make someone's life easier than using excel then they will ALWAYS use excel.

Sometimes "making life easier" has to mean "use the system or you're fired", sadly.

Oh no, I was part of an implementation of a new CRM from a 20+ year old database system and the number of people that dropped like flies in that process would make your head spin.

pinky0926 posted...

My favourite is when people get fired for using the system unaware that people can very easily investigate exactly how they're using the system.

Like the time a guy was going into bank account records and changing the details to his own bank account so that he'd be paid invoices directly

Incredible that he thought he'd get away with this tbh

WOW

Jiek_Fafn posted...

Youre a step ahead of where I'm at. I've watched people manually add up columns in excel to then input into their total cell. Our database itself is "too fancy" for them even though there are buttons in it to do this shit for them. Thankfully, they at least understand the concept of updating things in the system so other people can look it up accurately

There's a strange relationship between how difficult and strict you need to make the system to use vs how big the company is.

• A lil mom and pop store with a handful of workers: nothing in a database will be easier or faster to use than Mary printing off a spreadsheet and sitting down with John and marking things off with a highlighter. If you want a database then just use it like a contacts list.
• 10ish employees: well now you need to use the system, but it's ok if you don't record everything and we'll give nearly everyone manager permissions so that they can fiddle about with records however
• 10-30 employees: ok shit is pretty serious now, everyone needs to get off the spreadsheets or you're all going to be doing 3x the work. Also we need to think about who is allowed to do what, very carefully
• 100 employees: Everyone has a very specific task they are allowed to do in the system and nothing else, and don't you dare use any other systems or you're fired
• 1000 employees: wtf we're back to spreadsheets again

pinky0926 posted...

My favourite is when people get fired for using the system unaware that people can very easily investigate exactly how they're using the system.

Like the time a guy was going into bank account records and changing the details to his own bank account so that he'd be paid invoices directly

Incredible that he thought he'd get away with this tbh

The CTO at my job has a bunch of email filters that alert him to stuff people send. The running joke is "if you want to make sure he reads your email, say fuck in it."

But that's not the only filter he has. He's also got one for all C level positions. Presumably if the CEO, COO, CSO etc send any emails he wants to know about it.

And the reason I know about that rule is because one time a project manager dude modified his email signature to say he was the CEO of the company. He said it was a joke but nobody really thought it was funny.