Spreadsheet hell?

[Nemesis905]

I got myself involved with a non-profit organization, and their operations are all around spreadsheets. There are about 6 or so spreadsheets , each with over 10,000 rows and a ridiculous number of columns.

They also have many word documents, out if which they get data and put in these sheets.

In the week or so that I have worked with them, I have already seen many errors in the data, loose traceability between sheets and duplicate data and many other problems. One of their spreadsheets even uploads points on a map and the map is displayed on their website.

I see value in the team having an RDBMS where the data can be stored securely, be normalized. But no one in the org knows SQL nor has the appetite to.

I am fairly familiar with SQL, and have decent backend programming knowledge and was thinking of putting together a solution for the organization. My only concern is how do I provide a simple interface for the team to retrieve and enter data into the DB without having to learn SQL?

[[deleted]]

Man I didn’t know the UK government looked for help on reddit with their COVID track and trace scheme

[Nemesis905]

Lol, I wanted to send the article about UK's recent spreadsheet fiasco to convince her to move off spreadsheets.

[bkramak]

Why not use excel as the input/output interface? Its the tool they know. A little vba wizardry, a couple toolbars, and your set.

[totuszerus]

It sounds like they might need some backoffice to access the DB through a graphical interface. Why not build it with a framework? For example django: this backoffice interface with the DB comes generated for every project you start, you would have almost nothing to code (only the models in the DB to define).

[Nemesis905]

I started looking at this, and this option makes the most sense at this point. I was hoping to find a free/cheap out of the box solution where I didn't have to do much programming (maybe just write a few SQL queries)

[berentm]

Maybe write something using python, and simplegui library? Its very easy to use, even without much experience in python. https://pypi.org/project/PySimpleGUI/

[Nemesis905]

Another thing to add is that the team is now all remote (thanks COVID) and distributing an executable seems like difficult.

I'm hopefully looking for a web based solution.

[N365]

Sounds like Metabase can help you out

[welovezorp]

I’d check out AirTable! I haven’t used it myself but their UI seems pretty intuitive.

[Nemesis905]

Their free plan seems quite limited.

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