On Sun, 5 Apr 2026 15:17:51 -0400 William Park via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Question: How would you manage multiple people adding same kind of data into a spreadsheet?
I have worked with spreadsheets accessed and updated by multiple people. The system basically worked. Solutions to your problem... 1. Don't employ morons. 2. Inevitably, this will happen even if all your people are competent. Learn from the experience, and don't repeat it very often. Spreadsheets like Excel and LibreOffice calc are widely available and convenient to use. Occasional trashing of data is a cost of collaboration. 3. Everybody keeps their own spreadsheet, and they copy and paste into the primary spreadsheet. If you are backing up the primary spreadsheet, you recover the undamaged spreadsheet, and everybody including the moron re-enters their data. 4. Forget the spreadsheet. Set up a database where everybody enters their data into a sandbox, and a central server updates the main database. Estimate the cost, and consider the possibility that they will take you up on it. 5. I have set up a PDM (Product Data Management) database for SolidWorks. You create files and check them into the database. People check the files out, update them, and check them back in again. If somebody screws up, you can go back a version or two (or three or four), and resume updating. There is no need to aggressively stop people from getting work done. I don't know how this would work with a single spreadsheet. I am not aware of any Free PDM software. -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson