It's... complicated :) Mostly because utility companies insist on Excel for exchange of energy calculations. And even more importantly, because it was WAY WAY better than the previous iteration. Don't make me talk about it.
You can use actual programming languages to beat up excel: http://www.python-excel.org/ (I'm sure other languages can beat up excel too)
I'm not saying it's a fix for this particular use case, but I couldn't imagine having to manually update a bunch of excel sheets regularly.. talk about a nightmare. ack.
Or indeed https://github.com/kaleidicassociates/excel-d which schweiguy may find more appealing :)
I feel your pain and too don't want to talk about it, the problem is the software 'corporates' think they should be using isn't what they should be using due to people in non-technical roles making technical decisions.
Re:How to Report a Bug to Microsoft
by JumpCrisscross on Friday May 26, 2017 @05:48PM
(#14427451)
Because anyone can edit, and probably understand, it. Same reason hedge funds and banks calculate so much through Excel. Contrast that with a service which someone has to maintain, keep up to date, document, et cetera.
Re:How to Report a Bug to Microsoft
by devopsproject on Friday May 26, 2017 @04:42PM
(#14427013)
because some phb only understands excel.
Ok, sounds janky, but go on...
>In my particular case, I am using this feature to connect our internal job tracking system that I developed to spreadsheets that are used for calculating pricing and energy savings (our company makes energy savings updates to refrigeration systems), and upload that result back to the tracking system.
Oh god why?? Why!?? What is this Frankenstein system you have created??