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15:["$","p","15",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"The final test. If the file were corrupted or deleted this morning, what would stop? If the answer is anything significant, you are running a critical system with no backup discipline, no access control, no audit trail and one author."}]
16:["$","aside","16",{"className":"border-l-2 border-signal/40 bg-signal/5 px-6 py-5","children":[["$","p",null,{"className":"label-mono text-signal","children":"Three or more signals"}],["$","p",null,{"className":"mt-3 text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-silver","children":"Any one of these on its own is usually survivable. Three or more at once is the point where the risk of continuing typically exceeds the cost of replacing it."}]]}]
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18:["$","p","18",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"It is worth being specific, because \"we need a proper system\" is not a requirement."}]
19:["$","ul","19",{"className":"space-y-2.5","children":[["$","li","Concurrency — several people working at once without overwriting each other",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Concurrency — several people working at once without overwriting each other"}]]}],["$","li","Validation at entry — impossible values rejected rather than corrected later",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Validation at entry — impossible values rejected rather than corrected later"}]]}],["$","li","Permissions — people see and change only what their role allows",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Permissions — people see and change only what their role allows"}]]}],["$","li","Audit trail — a durable record of who changed what, when, and from what value",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Audit trail — a durable record of who changed what, when, and from what value"}]]}],["$","li","Relationships — a customer, their orders and their deliveries linked rather than repeated",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Relationships — a customer, their orders and their deliveries linked rather than repeated"}]]}],["$","li","Automation hooks — the system can notify, generate documents and post to other systems on events",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Automation hooks — the system can notify, generate documents and post to other systems on events"}]]}],["$","li","Reporting on live data — no assembly step between the data and the report",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Reporting on live data — no assembly step between the data and the report"}]]}]]}]
1a:["$","p","20",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"If none of those matter for your workbook, it does not need replacing. Plenty of spreadsheets are perfectly appropriate and should be left alone."}]
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1c:["$","p","22",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"The single most valuable asset in a mature spreadsheet is not the data. It is the accumulated business logic — the pricing rule that accounts for a specific customer arrangement, the adjustment applied to one product category, the exception for month-end. Much of this was never written down anywhere else."}]
1d:["$","p","23",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"A replacement project should begin by extracting that logic explicitly: reading the formulas, asking the author why each exists, and documenting the rules in plain language. This is worth doing even if you decide not to build anything. It converts a fragile personal asset into an organisational one."}]
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1f:["$","ol","25",{"className":"space-y-3.5","children":[["$","li","Document the rules from the workbook and confirm them with the person who maintains it.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-4","children":[["$","span",null,{"className":"label-mono mt-1 shrink-0 text-signal","children":"01"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Document the rules from the workbook and confirm them with the person who maintains it."}]]}],["$","li","Design the data model around the real entities — customers, orders, jobs — rather than replicating the sheet layout.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-4","children":[["$","span",null,{"className":"label-mono mt-1 shrink-0 text-signal","children":"02"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Design the data model around the real entities — customers, orders, jobs — rather than replicating the sheet layout."}]]}],["$","li","Build the core first and load a copy of the real data into it, not sample data.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-4","children":[["$","span",null,{"className":"label-mono mt-1 shrink-0 text-signal","children":"03"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Build the core first and load a copy of the real data into it, not sample data."}]]}],["$","li","Run both in parallel for a full cycle, comparing outputs and investigating every difference.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-4","children":[["$","span",null,{"className":"label-mono mt-1 shrink-0 text-signal","children":"04"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Run both in parallel for a full cycle, comparing outputs and investigating every difference."}]]}],["$","li","Switch over once they agree, and keep the final workbook as a read-only archive.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-4","children":[["$","span",null,{"className":"label-mono mt-1 shrink-0 text-signal","children":"05"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"Switch over once they agree, and keep the final workbook as a read-only archive."}]]}]]}]
20:["$","p","26",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"Step four is the one that gets cut under time pressure and the one that determines whether people trust the new system. A parallel run that finds three discrepancies has done its job — those three would otherwise have been found by a customer."}]
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22:["$","p","28",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"Replacing the workbook does not mean removing Excel from the business, and any vendor who tells you it does is not being practical. Excel remains excellent for analysis, modelling and one-off questions. The change is that it stops being the place where operational records live, and becomes what it is good at: a tool for thinking with data that a system exports on demand."}]
23:["$","aside",null,{"className":"order-first lg:order-last","children":["$","nav",null,{"aria-labelledby":"toc-heading","className":"lg:sticky lg:top-28 border-l border-edge pl-5","children":[["$","p",null,{"id":"toc-heading","className":"label-mono text-slate","children":"On this page"}],["$","ol",null,{"className":"mt-4 space-y-2.5","children":[["$","li","Seven signals that the workbook has outgrown itself",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#seven-signals-that-the-workbook-has-outgrown-itself","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"Seven signals that the workbook has outgrown itself"}]}],["$","li","What a system does that a spreadsheet cannot",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#what-a-system-does-that-a-spreadsheet-cannot","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"What a system does that a spreadsheet cannot"}]}],["$","li","What to do with the knowledge in the workbook",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#what-to-do-with-the-knowledge-in-the-workbook","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"What to do with the knowledge in the workbook"}]}],["$","li","Migrating without losing anything",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#migrating-without-losing-anything","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"Migrating without losing anything"}]}],["$","li","Excel afterwards",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#excel-afterwards","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"Excel afterwards"}]}]]}]]}]}]
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