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As a business tool, the spreadsheet is cited as a valuable decision‐making aid, but despite its apparent widespread use, its scope and potential, both with respect to areas of application and features offered, are barely exploited by the general user. Discusses and investigates these issues by examining the level of skills present amongst a group of spreadsheet users and the vehicles used in acquiring them. Argues that, in a general business environment, a lack of training in this area is, in many cases, confining the spreadsheet to little more than an electronic filing cabinet.

“Documentation”—that which is incorporated into the spreadsheet file, in contrast to manuals that come with the software per se—seems to be acknowledged more in theory than in practice. Documentation appears in the first section of the spreadsheet, for it introduces the reader to the model and enables the reader to “get his/her bearings.” Necessary elements include a title line, a purpose statement, directions on how the model is to be used, references to sources and ideas, and a table of contents.

Reports on the rationale used in the selection of a spreadsheet for use in information management and planning operations. Surveys business users and software suppliers to shed light on the criteria adopted in the selection process. Suggests that perceived market leaders and the procurement behaviour of competing organizations have greater influence than a rigorous IT selection strategy.

Undertakes a comparative study of the statistical capability of three spreadsheets which are commonly used in the business sector. The spreadsheets considered are Lotus 1‐2‐3, Microsoft Excel and Quattro Pro. Considers five areas of statistical analysis regularly used by business decision makers (rather than specialist personnel). In order to obtain an objective measure of the statistical provision of each spreadsheet, comparison has also been made with dedicated statistical software regularly used by business decision makers, namely MINITAB. By making this comparison, argues that the spreadsheet is not only a tool for analysis, but also for presentation. Moreover, considers that two spreadsheets in particular, namely Excel and Quattro Pro, offer a user‐friendly statistical provision which should be sufficient for most business decision makers.

Process mining provides a generic collection of techniques to turn event data into valuable insights, improvement ideas, predictions, and recommendations. This paper uses spreadsheets as a metaphor to introduce process mining as an essential tool for data scientists and business analysts. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that process mining can do with events what spreadsheets can do with numbers.

The paper discusses the main concepts in both spreadsheets and process mining. Using a concrete data set as a running example, the different types of process mining are explained. Where spreadsheets work with numbers, process mining starts from event data with the aim to analyze processes.

Differences and commonalities between spreadsheets and process mining are described. Unlike process mining tools like ProM, spreadsheets programs cannot be used to discover processes, check compliance, analyze bottlenecks, animate event data, and provide operational process support. Pointers to existing process mining tools and their functionality are given.

Event logs and operational processes can be found everywhere and process mining techniques are not limited to specific application domains. Comparable to spreadsheet software widely used in finance, production, sales, education, and sports, process mining software can be used in a broad range of organizations.

The paper provides an original view on process mining by relating it to the spreadsheets. The value of spreadsheet-like technology tailored toward the analysis of behavior rather than numbers is illustrated by the over 20 commercial process mining tools available today and the growing adoption in a variety of application domains.

Except for word processing, the electronic spreadsheet is probably the most useful general purpose software for the microcomputer user. Almost all spreadsheets are now packaged in combination with other applications, such as database systems and graphic capabilities. To become proficient in the development of spreadsheet applications, one must be prepared to invest a certain amount of time and effort, but the user will be rewarded by the results. In addition to a general discussion of spreadsheets, the authors critically review Microsoft Excel, version 2.0 (for the IBM PS/2, PC‐AT, or compatibles), noting enhancements over earlier spreadsheets. A sidebar presents spreadsheet templets that can be used to manage a library retrospective conversion project.

Until now, the usage and usability factors associated with AEC–FM standards have remained largely overlooked. This oversight could be a potentially significant factor in the adoption rates as well as effective utilization of such advanced solutions in the AEC–FM industry. Therefore, from a conceptual and theoretical viewpoint, the purpose of this paper is to address this gap in understanding and enhancing the usability aspects of standards such as construction operations building information exchange (COBie) over its spreadsheet representation. Besides, findings from this study and the proposed theoretical fundamentals to enhance the usability and functionality of COBie spreadsheet representation could potentially lay the foundation for a VisualCOBie approach.

The iterative steps of design thinking and agile development are harmonized to form the main research methodology. Design thinking is useful in problem (re)formulation, and agile development is useful in iterative software development. The approach aims to identify and understand the needs and requirements of the AEC–FM users from the standardized approaches and associated IT solutions; and formulate the main features and functionalities of the proposed solution. The methodology supports the aim of generating a broad range of possible solutions instead of coming up with the “right” solution.

Despite the standards and associated IT developments, the AEC–FM industry still suffers from inefficient information management. To date, most initiatives have focused on utilization of the outputs from different IT solutions in terms of accuracy and completeness of the data defined in the standards. This research found that well-established standards such as COBie and corresponding IT solutions are not merely technical issues, but it is equally important to understand how the end-users cognitively perceive and process them. The developed solutions need to address user point of view to facilitate wider utilization of these standards in practice.

In this research, Gestalt’s visual perception principles have been used to evaluate the usability issues of COBie spreadsheet. Although Gestalt principles provide a valid and proven viewpoint, there can be other cognitive principles that could also be taken into consideration.

The usage and usability factors associated with AEC–FM standards have remained largely overlooked, indicating a gap in the literature. This gap was considered as a potentially significant factor in the adoption as well as effective utilization of such standards and advanced solutions in the AEC–FM industry. By grounding the research in cognitive and usability perspectives of information exchange standards, the authors demonstrate how such theoretical underpinning can lead to innovative solutions.

An alarming number of spreadsheet faults have been reported in the literature, indicating that effective and easy-to-apply spreadsheet testing techniques are not available for “non-technical,” end-user programmers. The purpose of this paper is to alleviate the problem by introducing a metamorphic testing (MT) technique for spreadsheets.

The paper discussed four common challenges encountered by end-user programmers when testing a spreadsheet. The MT technique was then discussed and how it could be used to solve the common challenges was explained. An experiment involving several “real-world” spreadsheets was performed to determine the viability and effectiveness of MT.

The experiment confirmed that MT is highly effective in spreadsheet fault detection, and yet MT is a general technique that can be easily used by end-user programmers to test a large variety of spreadsheet applications.

The paper provides a detailed discussion of some common challenges of spreadsheet testing encountered by end-user programmers. To the best of the authors knowledge, the paper is the first that includes an empirical study of how effective MT is in spreadsheet fault detection from an end-user programmer's perspective.

Although spreadsheets are now widely used in libraries, there is little evidence that their application to practical problems of library stock management has been recognised. This paper describes a project undertaken at Aston University Library and Information Services to use the spreadsheet package Excel to assist in planning the respacing of the periodical stock. After briefly outlining the background to the project, the paper describes in detail the construction of the spreadsheet and its implementation. Use of the Excel model demonstrated how the capacity of spreadsheets to perform complex calculations can be successfully applied to practical library problems.

Spreadsheet software packages find ready applications in Western nations with a high proportion of PCs having a spreadsheet package installed. In Taiwan there is a high degree of acceptance of this class of software. In the People′s Republic of China, however, there is not the same degree of acceptance with only a very small proportion of end users utilizing this important class of software. Discusses the present situation with respect to the use of spreadsheet software in China and presents several reasons why the level is low.