I have a question on how I should re-design an application. To keep things simple, it is a Financial Analysis tool in which, current relevant financial data is entered to produce graphs and charts that will enable us to make decisions about buying/selling various financial products.
Currently the system is comprised of about 30 excel spreadsheets, that our financial engineers enter data into. A strict process must be followed to ensure the integrity of all spreadsheets is kept. Our engineers start by entering up-to-date financial data into a couple of different spreadsheets, they then update(from the spreadsheets they just modified) about 10 different spreadsheets by pressing a button on each one, and modify the data on those sheets until they get their decision graphs looking exaclty how they want them. This is a very simplified version.
Obviously this current system is ineffecient and should be enhanced, but my question is should I keep the current application in excel or should re-write it using something like windows forms, a backend such as SQL Server, and reporting software or maybe a mixture of windows forms, and excel? There is quite a bit of numeric data(including historical data from years back), is this something that would be appopriate to keep in a database? Also, most of the spreadsheets are dependant on data entered into just a few, it seems like storing common data would be a good reason for a database?
Obviously there are numerous solutions, but any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks for the help!
Currently the system is comprised of about 30 excel spreadsheets, that our financial engineers enter data into. A strict process must be followed to ensure the integrity of all spreadsheets is kept. Our engineers start by entering up-to-date financial data into a couple of different spreadsheets, they then update(from the spreadsheets they just modified) about 10 different spreadsheets by pressing a button on each one, and modify the data on those sheets until they get their decision graphs looking exaclty how they want them. This is a very simplified version.
Obviously this current system is ineffecient and should be enhanced, but my question is should I keep the current application in excel or should re-write it using something like windows forms, a backend such as SQL Server, and reporting software or maybe a mixture of windows forms, and excel? There is quite a bit of numeric data(including historical data from years back), is this something that would be appopriate to keep in a database? Also, most of the spreadsheets are dependant on data entered into just a few, it seems like storing common data would be a good reason for a database?
Obviously there are numerous solutions, but any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks for the help!
