Power Tools and Databases

My power tool of choice is a sander.  Whenever I paint, it’s time to choose the right sander. This time I was removing old oil paint from a window sill.
That’s a job for a sheet sander

For small nonprofits and for individual use in any government agency, your power tool of choice is a spread sheet.  You use as a database.  It does the trick but if you’ve got a lot of data it gets easy to lose data, hopelessly mix up data when you sort (even though the spreadsheet asks if you are sure), get harder to use the larger the spreadsheet. \

1)   Use a spreadsheet if you have a small amount of data, perhaps up to row Column AA and 200 or 300 Rows.  Yes, you can use it for much more but…

Turn to an alternative, the rotary sander.  I’ve used this on large porch railings.  It helps you work on larger surfaces without creating lines.  The equivalent is Access or an open source cloud-based program.  These are true databases.  I’ve seen many employees fail to take the leap from a spreadsheet to a true database because the learning curve is high or you need to pay for a host website.  They move to a shared spreadsheet such as google sheets, but that isn’t the rotary sander equivalent. It just allows you to share more easily.  Databases are great for donor or member data because it is easier to handle large amounts of data and you’ll never sort it and have to start over.  I’m familiar with an open source data bases for housing museum and library digital collections and another for GIS data  

2)   Use a database to easily sort and filter data y, create queries, and routine reports but…

Sometimes you’ve grown enough and need to get out the belt sander.  It only goes one way and is designed for the big job.  The problem is it can get out of control.  I once used my belt sander on a cottage porch.  Don’t take your hand off or away it goes.  That is,  if you decided to ask a vendor to build a database for you, you will need to be hands-on in the development, ensure that you have follow-up, and routine updates.   You are probably familiar with infamous builds of state health and human service agencies.  They often have to be dumped because they fail to do what is needed. 

Belt Sander Source: Home Depot

I recently entered travel reimbursement using a proprietary web-based software for my university-based work.  I had to have a staff member specifically assigned to assist employees set up employees in the database.  I had to have that same staff member help me go through the database process to enter my miles, receipts, conference fees, etc.   It was clearly a product set up for a wide variety of customers.  It had lots of cities in the database to use for your start and stop destinations, but when I couldn’t find mine, I had to put in cities close by.  I couldn’t add in a new location.  Then I had to put in mileage to and from locations. The database didn’t use the cities I had already entered to determine my mileage automatically. Nor did it attach the hotel fees paid by a university credit card.  It had an unwieldy interface to put in cost centers.

1)   Use new builds to do multiple tasks for multiple departments that has continuous support from the vendor.

2)   Use an interface appropriate for your organization but…

Sometimes you just need a simple form.  Don’t automate what doesn’t need to be automated.  Travel reimbursement might well be one of these jobs.  I’m sure it was created to move to the paperless office, but is someone analyzing the costs of attendance at conferences, travel?  I doubt it; that is the true use of a database, to query and report.

The paper travel reimbursement form I filled out for my nonprofit volunteer work took a matter of minutes.  No employee had to guide me through.  It’s the equivalent of the washable sanding block. It works great for little jobs and to touch up those big jobs.

Do you have a misguided use of a database at your work? Let me know.