“Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot” — Chapter 106

Edgar emails both files to the duo as soon as they’re off the phone. In so doing, he admittedly feels kind of cool for coming up with that simple workaround which should help speed up the transition phase. It once again highlights how the true dynamic here, as far as this master Excel file is concerned, is really completely flipped around from how most people perceive it — even those who deal with these programs every day. It all started with Teri, who in turn impressed this notion upon Edgar. And he agrees: this Excel file is the database. What you are calling the database, be it Orchestra or Slingshot or RU Data, or even ChefAssist or ScaleMaster or any of the lesser programs, those are interfaces.

Because he makes all his changes in this file first. It is way more flexible and comprehensive than any of the other programs. If attempting to dispense with this, the first inevitable snag you run into is that no single report has quite the same information, in its entirety. Meaning you must run multiple reports, then combine them, and almost always have to rearrange or reformat certain fields on top of it.

This has become all the more true thanks to some recent enhancements he’s been able to make, after John Arthur from Slingshot coached him through them. John’s expertise extends far beyond merely the company that employs him, as he’s simply one of the most knowledgeable people Edgar has ever met when it comes to office applications and the retail industry as a whole. Even Dale, who by chance happened to attend some random conference where John was speaking, and sat in for one of his sessions, has returned raving about the guy.

“That dude is the man!” Dale enthuses, in Edgar’s office, the first day of his return, “I’ve already got a ton of ideas, just from listening to him talk.”

Edgar knows exactly what he means. That two day session Arthur spent here went by in rapid-fire fashion, as Edgar and many of the others took a flurry of notes. He’s only recently had a chance to implement one of the points he’d circled back then, this being how to connect an Excel file to a SQL database, to where the spreadsheet is actually “live.” Upon emailing John about this, the latter almost instantly replied with a series of steps on how to implement it. With this connection in place, all…