Fifteen years ago or more when I was developing Lotus Notes applications I was often asked to take an Excel spreadsheet and turn it into a Notes app. A common way of sharing information then was to create an Excel spreadsheet and store it on a shared disk drive where people could access it and update it or to pass it around by email.
Why Excel and not a database? Well Excel was the only tool that everyone had easy access to. Either they did not have access to a database tool because IT would not allow it or they did not have the skills to develop a database application themselves and could not afford to ask IT. But everyone had Excel and everyone knew how to program it - however crudely. Turning a spreadsheet into a Notes app was usually trivial and only took an hour or two but hugely improved the quality and accessibility of the information.
Using a spreadsheet was a very poor fudge back then but today its a crazy solution given all the modern tools we have! But guess what I came across an organisation a week or two back that were sharing information just that way - Excel spreadsheets on a shared drive! I still find it hard to believe.
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