Microsoft Excel - Alternative to Excel - Asked By DGL Smith on 11-Jan-10 08:43 PM

Hello,

If one wanted to take an EXCEL program that was developed for tracking and calculating projects and savings - to a higher level with more advanced functions - what application could be used?


Thanks

It looks like Microsoft Project is the tool that you should be after.

[)ia6l0 iii replied to DGL Smith on 11-Jan-10 09:18 PM
Microsoft Project, a Project Management software from Microsoft, helps you 
  • develops plans, 
  • manage your resources,
  • manage your tasks,
  • track Progress,
  • manage budgets
But note that it is not free. You need to shell out some money to grab it. If you are looking at free alternatives, then you could opt one of these:
  • Open Workbench: Open source application that supports many functionalities that Microsoft Project supports.  Find more info here. 
  • GANTT project: Pretty good resource management tool. You can find more info here. 
Although the above two are not comphrensive as the Microsoft Project tool, It is always worth a shot to evaluate.

Hope it helps.


Project - DGL Smith replied to DGL Smith on 11-Jan-10 09:25 PM

I don't think that this would be what we are looking for.  We have more of a savings tracking tool - to caclutate savings each month for contracts.


Thanks,

MS Access - F Cali replied to DGL Smith on 11-Jan-10 09:42 PM

Your next step will be using a relational database application.  You can use MS Access at first and once you store more information and once your requirement grows, you can go to SQL Server but I believe for now MS Access is your next step.

Regards,
SQL Server Helper

re - Web Star replied to DGL Smith on 11-Jan-10 11:05 PM
if your calcuation is realted to advanced financeial type then the better choice is QuickBook
More Function - Tim Sant replied to Web Star on 11-Jan-10 11:13 PM

There are additional functions within excel as "add ins" such as Goal Seek.


Though if you are after increased visibility into each project with minimal transactional entries to read from you will most likely need to develop a basic dashboard yourself within excel.


I have many dashboards that i have built for my company (unfortunately i cannot forward examples) however if your after basic ratios conversions etc... you will be best off googling for each particular measure that you would like to have within the dashboard.  this would only be a time commitment rather than a $ commitment for you to establish within the company.


Pivot Table Formulas are also a good use when you start to group the particular instances in the transactions as once you have set it up you can simply overwrite the current pivot table source and refresh the table to see the new data with the measures in place.


Jonathan VH replied to DGL Smith on 12-Jan-10 07:19 AM

You need to provide more detail to get a useful answer. What do you mean by "tracking and calculating projects and savings?" What "more advanced functions" are you loooking to implement? Depending on your needs, the best answer could be anything from better use of Excel to a full-blown project accounting application.