Keep Spreadsheets in the office

[Qshake]

All -

It's apparent that we all use spreadsheets in our everyday work. Some of us work in very competitive markets so let me ask how others keep spreadsheets within the workplace and not leaving with the developer or someone who's just using?

Do you have a method?
No method, just trust?
Leave it to the overall general policy about intellectual theft?
Passwords? Are they enough?

thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[JAE]

Qshake:

We "leave it to the overall general policy about intellectual theft"

 

[HVACctrl]

In our office, the sheets are locked (password protected).

They can be stoelen, but our letterheard are on them, etc...

Formulae are locked and hidden, so they wouldn't be as useful.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[jmw]

I guess a lot has to do with what the spreadsheet does.

I have put together a very few that are worth sharing and since they can make life a little easier, I share.
In fact one can be found somewhere on cheresources and has been requested by a small number of people who have found it helpful.

Most often they then want the passwords so they can adapt the spreadsheets to their own purposes and I am happy to oblige.

However, if I were to put together something really original or that was a real cost saver and uniquely depended on my skills, rather than on my happening to have had the opportunity/incentive to put in the work any of us could do, then I guess I would want to benefit and protect it in someway. In that case I guess I would move from spreadsheet to Visual Basic or something more secure.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[HVACctrl]

jmw has a great point.

The spreadsheets in our office do not really have any proprietary info. Its formulas and whatnot that are common engineering knowledge.

I'm not sure why my company keeps them PW protected as its not anything that can hurt them. It may benefit others, but seems a little absurd that they are not accessible.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[LHA]

They've been open to everyone in all 5 firms I've worked in. I often give them to folks when working together, even if they are the "competition". I didn't even know you could hide the formulas???

I have found most spreadsheets - including my own - fall into one of two catagories: 1) so basic in design and concept, that at best it would save the "thief" several hours max of re-keying commonly held formulae, or 2) so specific to a given task and complex, that no one other than those working on that task could ever use them without extensive editting.

Based on that, I wouldn't care if you stole mine.

Engineering is the practice of the art of science - Steve

 

[HVACctrl]

I'm with iha and jmw.

Ours are locked, but looks like only to cost the "thief" a couple of hours. That's vindication!

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[jmw]

I hide the formulae and lock the spreadsheet against editing and set the tab to tab to open cells.
The password protection is simply to stop people messing up the formulae inadvertently. I also like to use the cell formats to make it easy to discriminate cells that require data entered and those that present results.
I guess I spend rather more time on them than i should but if you share, you don't want to spend your life explaining how to use them... so I also use the text boxes and cell info facilities.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

Ah Qshake, you had me going for a moment there and I was about to blast our hosts for losing my last posts (or worse, they'd been red flagged for some reason) and then I discovered I had wandered into the Engineering Spreadsheets forum.... 5-6 years a member and you double posted!


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[Zapster]

Any person who wants to find a key that will unlock any Excel spreadsheet’s password would only need to look for one on the internet. Excel passwords are not secure and with the proper macro, they take about 10 seconds to deactivate.

So with that being said, if it is security that you are concerned with, locking an Excel spreadsheet with a password will not be an effective deterrent. A password protected sheet will keep an honest person honest.

 

[drawoh]

HVACctrl,

Any time I generate an analysis spreadsheet, I assume that someone will want to go over my stuff and see how I did it. I assume that this is a good thing. They may catch errors, or they may use my speadsheet as the basis for further analysis. I make the spreadsheet understandable by using cell names. I do not lock stuff down. Security should not trump clarity.

None of my stuff is particularly advanced. If it was, it would not be of any use if nobody could read it.

I remember back 25/30 years ago when I worked on contract. Regularly, I got phone calls from people who had just started their own employment agencies, and who wanted to know if I was available. The only explanation for this is that they ran the Xerox machine hard on the day they quit their old jobs. At least with today's USB sticks, it does not cost the company physical resouces to get ripped off like this.

How about when you use tools on your home computer that are not available at work? My home computer runs Linux, and I can get at C, C++, Fortran, Python, BASIC and who knows that else.

JHG

 

[SomptingGuy]

It's apparent that we all use spreadsheets in our everyday work.

Really? It may be an accountat's dream, but the ubiquitous spreadsheet is probably the least traceable and most inappropriate tool used by engineers.

 

[GregLocock]

I tried that argument (which I still agree with). Apparently in Excel you can change the view to 'formulas', which at least in theory gives you a checkable source code.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[drawoh]

SomptingGuy,

Clarity is good, but it can be achieved on a spreadsheet. The primary trick is to assign cell names, so that formulae make sense. Sophisticated computer languages have all sorts of resources for achieving clarity, but they only work if the programmer takes advantage of them. You can write obfuscated spaghetti in any language. If you do not use a spreadsheet, you will have to write a user interface. This could be a lot of work.

A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can be expected to work on almost any machine a techie would have access to. This includes Linux. I don't know about the default configuration of Macs. If you want portability, you want a spreadsheet.

I like jmw's point, above. If security really matters, you should not be using a spreadsheet. You should be using a compiled programming language, and securing the source code.

Would you put your engineer's license on the line over code that I write and then refuse to show you?

JHG

 

[graybeach]

This might be a losing battle, but I think calculations should independently verifiable without the use of a computer. When doing a repetitive complicated calculation that needs a spread sheet this means including a sample calculation that explains and justifies what is in each cell. For structural analysis, this means including a printout of the entire input file in the calculations. For geometry, I use DOS cogo and include the print out and sketches.
I dislike fancy spread sheets with lots of bells and whistles and often ask recent graduates if they want to be an engineer or a spreadsheet designer.

 

[SomptingGuy]

When I used to work on client projects there was strict software quality assurance involved. Not the boiler-plate variety, but a formal requirement to record every version of every commercial and/or in-house program used and to archive input data. If the program was a temporary, hand-written one (e.g. in Matlab) it needed to be printed out and included in the file. The point being that if the ship/plane/plant/car/whatever failed, the analysis could be reconstructed in full.

When an engineer's PC dies and takes his beloved spreadsheet with it, nobody really knows how the safety-critical calcs were done.

 

[Backfill]

Here are two views as employee and employer:
-When I was employed with one or another of the majors, the spreadsheets pretty much were always open to others on staff or within the corporation. A few folks always seemed to think there were corporate or professional secrets, but as a rule the sharing of info and approaches simply benefited more of us (and the firms) than not. Also helped with standardization to some extent.
- In dealing with contract work, clear explanation of the calculations was in order, but we often did not require source 'code' (spreadsheets). Printouts with documentation were acceptable, to whatever degree the particular project required.
- I now am running my own consultancy, and normally we provide PDF copies of our spreadsheets as support for the work. These include documentation sheets or sections where we present the base equations or logic for the analyses. Commonly, we use these PDF files as appendices in the final submittals to the clients. The exec summaries will include tables, charts, etc. created from the spreadsheets. These same 'visuals' may be contained within the original spreadsheets. In 'code' work (i.e. IBC, SEC, 43-101, etc.) there are requirements for the documentation, but no particular need to provide working spreadsheets.
- Internally, we do as we have done in other settings - swap the spreadsheets with abandon so we can check our work and offer/receive advice or guidance as appropriate.
- Oh, some of our work is to provide working spreadsheets for clients, which provides its own direct answer to this thread... .
- Hope this helps.

Ralph R. Sacrison
Sacrison Engineering

http://www.sacrison-engineering.com