Looking ideas on what systems can be used for efficient internal business reporting in a small / medium business

May 17, 2009 2:27 PM

What efficient systems can one use to report different internal working data generated in a small / medium sized business - excel is too clumsy and a customized database based application feels like an overkill?

in my company, we have numerous excel sheets fly around every day with different performance data. i would like to have that data presented online so that good information about the business is one click away and does not come to me in multiple attached files - reading which files require me to launch Excel and then I need to worry about storing the file.

i tried to move those excel sheets to google spreadsheet, but google spreadsheets are very basic and i am not able to master basic charting. Editgrid is another option - more powerful and Excel like - current candidate.

But, I am thinking of a scenario where 5+ people enter information and not every information should be seen by all entering information and neither should all information go to every person. So some sort of database and presentation from that database, seems like the ideal option. While technically one can leverage MySQL, create forms in MySQL and create multiple reports from that database, that feels like both - 1) a large undertaking, and 2) feels like it will be a repeat of something that likely already exists either as a commercial solution or even possibly as an open source solution.

Any ideas?

posted by shalam to work & money (6 comments total)

I am unaware of what is your optimal solution for a centralized, small-scale database. I would imagine Access could be manipulated via a local network to do something that might be appropriate, but my computer savvy stops right about there.

I too look forward to hearing others' ideas.
posted by keasby at 2:58 PM on May 17

This is most certainly what Sharepoint is for. Sharepoint uses "lists" which are more or less glorified tables. They are not relational, but neither are individual Excel files. Just be careful in not being too awed by what Sharepoint can do and start demanding that it act like ASP forms with a SQL backend. If you end up using workflows there are some wonderful workflow products out there like K2, which is a nice way to start developing internal custom applications without having to get your hands dirty (or employing expensive developers).

Oh and you can lock down things super easy if you're using Active Directory.
posted by geoff. at 4:04 PM on May 17

Oh I should add that you can get granular permissions by making extensive use of views on a particular list. I can create a calendar view which only shows certain things and only give certain people access, etc.

A lot of times when initially using Sharepoint things seemed easier to do in mySQL + whatever, but in execution it was actually a whole lot simpler to do it in Sharepoint.

And one more thing, when deploying sites, I found that Sharepoint's "Meeting Space" provides tabs and use it pretty much for all my sub sites whether it is Meeting oriented or not. So if you clicked on something that said "HR" it would have sub tabs like "Vacation Request" and so force. The default sites are really unintuitive and don't offer a lot in terms of navigation.
posted by geoff. at 4:15 PM on May 17

geoff, thanks for pointing me in the direction of sharepoint. i will definitely explore sharepoint. i had not thought of sharepoint at all. so this is a big input.

wondering if there is any other solution which has a more MYSQL + presentation layer approach to information presentation.
posted by shalam at 7:29 AM on May 18

The microsoft flavor of that solution would be MS-SQL and access. Their free version of the backend is SQL Express so you can download it and see if it would be suitable.

But I agree with Geoff - SPS is pretty cool. If you can use Sharepoint instead of a two-tier system, I'd certainly try it.
posted by anti social order at 8:59 AM on May 18

thanks all.

sharepoint is not solving the need because it comes with significant overhead!
i have not found the right solution yet! :(

light, low on features, easy on maintenance and yet does its job of disseminating information in a collective manner. i might use smartsheet and have spreadsheets attached to it. or perhaps a hosted excel kind of solution...
posted by shalam at 1:13 PM on June 17