I would second (third?) the suggestion of distinct, named sheets. I would also say that this is an awful way to manage data like this, and this approach is guaranteed to fail occasionally, or often, sometimes in subtle ways. A correct, but much less polite person has a similar, well-reasoned opinion, expressed here: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-dropkick-you-if-you-use-that-... Lastly, I recommend making very frequent backups; like, hourly. Excel has a lockfile failure mode that will leave you with a blank file and no history (not a funny story). Good luck! On Sun, Apr 5, 2026, 17:10 Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
What I would personally do in this situation -- given my limited experience -- is to maintain a single spreadsheet document with multiple sheets. I include what it looks like in Google Sheets to add a (sub)sheet since I don't have Excel, but I'm told they function similarly.
Have one sheet dedicated to (and named for) each person then have them import to their own sheet. Then you can merge them together however you like once all is collected. This could be automated if it's frequently repeated but I don't do enough of that to know how. So long as each person just imports to their own sheet nobody will clobber the work of anyone else.
I'm sure there are more elegant ways to do this, consider mine a fallback if nothing better shows up.
On Sun, Apr 5, 2026 at 3:25 PM William Park via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Question: How would you manage multiple people adding same kind of data into a spreadsheet?
Situation: This company uses Excel spreadsheet as final form for their sales peoples. So, each person pulls his/her own data from CRM subsystem, and adds to this spreadsheet. Well, a moron overwrote other people's entries, and lost entire weekend's work.
So they ask me, and I said, "I don't know, but I'll ask around".
In my previous companies, such spreadsheet would be on a server. And, whenever someone opens to edit, it would lock the file. But, this only addresses "access". Not the "content".
Possible Solution: I'm thinking "template". Each person would be populating same kind of data into spreadsheet. So, maybe a script merges data from his/her template? Maybe, a "web form"? I don't know. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/PDDJ47L...
-- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56 ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/GDOZYWQ...