My company's IT Dept Blows : )

[Rob]

We're not here to do your work for you.

Try working on the problem yourself, and then asking
questions about specific things you cant figure out,
enstead of asking very broad questions.

You've violated several very obious newgroup etiquette
rules, not to mention common sense.

Almost all of the poeple who vountarily give help here are
part of some company's IT Department. Starting off by
dissing the IT Department is probably not a great way to
ensure a constructive response.

-----Original Message-----
Ok, now, with that off my chest, let me get to me question : )

I am a local call manager for one of Aetna's customer service center
sites.

I am new, and they have always used excel to do all their reporting.
The problem I have with this, is for 5 ifferent reports, you have to
key in the same info more than once!!

So, I started automating some of the reports using VB, BUT, then I came
up with the ingenious idea of proposing that we use Access to store all
the data, then I would create an app in VB to pull all the data from
TCS and CMS and centralize it. Then we could query and info we
wanted....

BUTTTT....the freakin' IT dept won't support Access, or any database on
the network. They said I could keep it on my PC and do the reporting
for my site, but I was hoping to help all the sites out.

Now, I had heard the word 'pivot table' before with excel...not sure
what it is, but, is there a way to use excel as I wanted to use access?
MAybe have different workbooks be the tables, and then link them
together somehow?

Keep raw data in 2 or three reports, and then have 'template' reports
that are read only, and then use VBA to create combo boxes to say which
site you want (the combo box would be loaded from another excel
sheet)...etc...etc...

Any ideas/suggestions/rejectons would be much apprecited : )

from http://www.ExcelForum.comat http://www.ExcelTip.com/

 

[jeffcravener]

I did NOT ask ANYONE to do the work for me....I asked a question, CAN it
be done...not HOW can it be done....
QUOTE 1:
"Now, I had heard the word 'pivot table' before with
excel...not sure what it is, but, is there a way to use excel as I
wanted to use access?" - Clearly asking if it can be done, not asking
ANYONE to do it....
QUOTE 2:
"Maybe have different workbooks be the tables, and then link them
together somehow? Keep raw data in 2 or three reports, and then have
'template' reports that are read only, and then use VBA to create combo
boxes to say which
site you want (the combo box would be loaded from another
excel sheet)...etc...etc... Any ideas/suggestions/rejectons would be
much apprecited : )" - Coming up with a solution, MYSELF, and ASKING if
it is POSSIBLE...the ONLY thing I asked 'how' to do, of which I thought
forums were for, if one did not know the answer, one came and asked a
GENERAL question on how to do something....and someone else would
answer, oh, to link 2 workbooks, you would say excelworkbook1.xls =
excelworkbook2....

SECONDLY-
I am in school for information systems....and plan to join an IT
dept...and I hope to god I have a better attitude and sense of humor
about these kinds of things than you apparently do...
My understanding of an IT department is to SUPPORT the needs of the
BUSINESS, in making the processing of INFORMATION easy to access: "the
broad subject concerned with all aspects of managing and processing
information, especially within a large organization or company."

I understand that SOME IT departments have their reasons for hindering
the work of a few to keep a network running smoothly (though they can't
seem to be up to date on viruses that are announced)...

But, if you would have noticed the smiley faces, you would be able to
read that my tone was neither indignent nor abbrassive....



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[jeffcravener]

question:

Standard Answer from IT Dept (paraphrased):
"The IT department is not here to direct or construct a reporting
structure for the seperate departments. We are here to support approved
software applications and to keep the network and systems up and
running."



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[Harlan Grove]

Also, as you have an IT department, why not go to them, tell them your
problem, what you would like to achieve, and ask them for a solution. That
is what IT departments are for.

...

When I read the OP, it seemed to me as if he had discussed this with them. Let's
just say my own experience with IT departments concurs with the OP's. When the
words 'user' and 'database' are used in the same sentence, IT types reflexively
say 'NO!' That said, most end users can't write workable specs and shouldn't be
allowed more than read-only access to any networked database.

 

[Alan Beban]

I hope you've seen by now that these particular newsgroups are more
hospitable than was suggested by the first response to your original post.

Alan Beban

 

[Ken Wright]

Ditto on Alan's comment, 100%

 

[Aaron Queenan]

Standard Answer from IT Dept (paraphrased):

"The IT department is not here to direct or construct a reporting
structure for the seperate departments. We are here to support approved
software applications and to keep the network and systems up and
running."

Which begs the obvious question: "why are they there?".

I mean, I've worked as a developer at several large banks and goverment
organisations, and their IT departments don't know how to support ANY
applications, OR how to keep the network and systems up. One of the fools
(the team leader) couldn't even find one of our computers which they were
"supporting", even though it was exactly where their own documentation said
it was.

I convinced them to give me Administrator access to our machines, and kept
them up-to-date with service packs and security hotfixes. Then I watched
with great amusement as every machine which they supported got CodeRed AND
Nimba, while ours didn't because of the service packs MS had released six
months earlier. :-D

Of course, there's always one or two people out of the 100 in the department
that actually know what they are doing.

Regards,
Aaron Queenan.

 

[Harlan Grove]

...
...

Of course, there's always one or two people out of the 100 in the department
that actually know what they are doing.

Yeah, they're the ones installing Linux or BSD on unused harware.