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Excel, A Fully Robust Spreadsheet Solution
September 28, 2021

Excel, A Fully Robust Spreadsheet Solution

Jason Hartigan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Excel

Our organization uses Microsoft Excel for a variety of reasons across and number of departments. The department I work in mainly uses it for data organization and storage. Personally, I also use it for analysis, forecasting, and data transformation.
Excel address a wide variety of business needs. We use it to export and report data out of our Relationship Management software. There are many times we are receiving data from other software products or outside sources that we are getting in Excel or other spreadsheet format that we need to have Excel to view and manage. Often times we want to connect the data we receive to the data we already have to give additional context. Excel handles that quite well. The ability to create reports, graphs, pivot charts, etc. is also a vital part of the software.
  • Excel is the most fully featured spreadsheet software you are likely to find.
  • The software is compatible with a large number of file formats so using data from nearly any source is possible.
  • It can handle large data sets.
  • It can save your files in a variety of file formats.
  • You should be able to collapse all tabs into a single sheet.
  • Macros are tough to program with out Visual Basic.
  • I find the graph wizard to be harder to use than in the past. Some users struggle with it.
  • Excel is a net positive return for us. The efficiency gains alone are worth it.
  • You would probably need more training and software if you tried to use a free alternative.
  • The Microsoft Suite can be expensive so you need to make sure you are only purchasing the features that your company needs.
I've used a few of the mobile spreadsheet programs that you can find on the app store and found them to be inferior to Excel, even the mobile version. Access is better than Excel for certain situations but it is largely overkill much of the time and requires a time investment for the average user as most people do not have experience running the software. Perhaps I am just a Windows homer but I did not adjust well to Apple Numbers. I cannot give any specific examples of functionality it may be lacking or performance differences but Excel just felt more intuitive and snappier.

Do you think Microsoft Excel delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Excel's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Excel live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Excel go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Excel again?

Yes

There isn't a computer user in a business environment that I would not recommend get a license for Excel. It's simply a must. Excel dominates the free alternatives like Sheets. If you are manipulating data in any way Excel is needed.

If all you are looking to do is view data or reports a PDF would probably just fine. You can't edit or otherwise work with the underlying data but in that case you would not need Excel. Conversely, if you want something more robust, like a database, then you would probably want to upgrade to Access. Access if going to better let you query the data and will have have better relationship tools.

Using Microsoft Excel