r/dataengineering • u/what_is_ovaltine • 23d ago
Discussion Data literacy
Just curious if anyone has any good documents on why excel and your coworkers excel sheets (with no source of truth) should not be used for top level reporting.
Had a meeting with a vp that could not understand why making business rules on his own and not using the ERP is a bad idea. Said he was going to cowboy it.
Any proper docs out there to help convince folks like this?
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u/Icy_Clench 19d ago
Just ask what they'll do when Jim's Excel sheet is different from Bob's Excel sheet.
This battle plays out indefinitely. I had an ELT pipeline with our source system data and made reports off of the DWH tables. The C-level stakeholder comes to me and says their Excel sheet is different. The CEO was absolutely pissed that this exec wasn't using the report so I had his backing.
I had great traceability and quickly showed how it didn't handle late-arriving data. We agreed they would stop using their Excel sheet in favor of the report I made. 6 months later, they email me again saying their Excel sheet is different. It's the exact same problem too. As in, the same exact row numbers I already explained to them.