Something more advanced then excel

[mol3000]

So I do not want to use excel but was wondering how hard would it be to create something that held names, email, phone, amount and time. Then lets say if David paid for items twice a week, I will need for it to tell me how much he spent on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis along with points that would be accumulated.

[Cornucopia]

Not sure why you are averse to excel (or its equivalents: g-sheets, apple numbers, open/libre office calc, lotus123, or even smartsheet). This would be a breeze for any of them. Not harder, at all.
I could this in my sleep if I had the time (I don't, sorry).


Scott

[lordsmurf]

- Quickbooks
- various CRMs

[emcodem]

OK, there are 2 issues i see with the way you ask the question, first: the title says "something more advanced than excel".. it will be hard to find something thats "more advanced" than a software that exists for about 30-40 years and is worth billions of dollars. - of course it is only advanced in the area it was developed for.
On the other hand you post this in the development forum which implies you thought about a custom program. If so, there are many questions that come up:

-) what programming languages are you able to use
-) in which environment has the final product to run
-) especially interesting: what is the data source? so how do you gather the informations about names, email, phone amount and time?

Sure there are many more questions but i am not sure if it is the direction you were thinking at all

[Cornucopia]

But all the criteria mentioned in the OP are so basic that many many tools can do it easily, including Excel and those equivalents that I already mentioned.


Scott

[mol3000]

OK, there are 2 issues i see with the way you ask the question, first: the title says "something more advanced than excel".. it will be hard to find something thats "more advanced" than a software that exists for about 30-40 years and is worth billions of dollars. - of course it is only advanced in the area it was developed for.
On the other hand you post this in the development forum which implies you thought about a custom program. If so, there are many questions that come up:

-) what programming languages are you able to use
-) in which environment has the final product to run
-) especially interesting: what is the data source? so how do you gather the informations about names, email, phone amount and time?

Sure there are many more questions but i am not sure if it is the direction you were thinking at all

You are right because I should of said more sleeker than excel. If possible I would love for the info to appear in webpage format. I know a small amount of html.

[DB83]

If you want this on a webpage - even just a local one on your PC - you code up in php and create your data in MySQL using an Apache server. All results then come from MySQL queries. Sounds expensive but everything, even a dms such as Heidi is free.


Sleeker yes. A learning curve an even bigger yes

[Selur]

SQLite probably makes more sense than MySQL.

[DB83]

^^ don't know that one. Since I have to author my website for online and offline (for testing) I stick to the basics.

[lingyi]

Don't know what you mean by sleek, but Excel has database functions that should fit your needs. You can create a custom form page to display only the info you need and use the online version of Excel to display in a browser, though I'm not sure all the functions are available.

Decades ago I created a workbook for the store I managed to maintain the customer information. Everything was hidden behind the form I created, not only make it easier for my co-workers, but to prevent them from touching anything they shouldn't. My co-worker who was a wiz at databases said "You did that in Excel?!"

I work in accounting and when I'm asked if I know Excel, I answer is that I've found over the decades that "Knowing Excel" is situational. There are advanced functions that I've never used before that make sense after looking up the formula and learning what they do.

[El Heggunte]

SQLite probably makes more sense than MySQL.

If the ¡diots who write the source-code of Firefox use SQlite then SQlite surely suxxx.

[codehound]

So I do not want to use excel but was wondering how hard would it be to create something that held names, email, phone, amount and time. Then lets say if David paid for items twice a week, I will need for it to tell me how much he spent on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis along with points that would be accumulated.

There is no other spreadsheet program invented that even comes close to Excel, did you mean you begrudge paying for Excel ?

If so, there are hundreds of open source spreadsheet apps that will run that basic, little formula automated, and with ease.

[emcodem]

[QUOTE=mol3000;2626565]

If possible I would love for the info to appear in webpage format. I know a small amount of html.

I guess the big question i asked before is the key part here... what is the data source? Is all the data how much david paid how often already available in some kind of database or other digital form or do you want/need to input it manually anyways?
If you input the data manually, then it is most likely just as all others said here, the time to develop your own solution would be huge compared to just learn and work into one of the existing spreadsheed apps like excel... It could only make sense to develop your own solution in a large scale environment, e.g. when you need a few users to work with it and they are not teachable regarding using the spreadsheed app

[mol3000]

[QUOTE=emcodem;2627016]

If possible I would love for the info to appear in webpage format. I know a small amount of html.

I guess the big question i asked before is the key part here... what is the data source? Is all the data how much david paid how often already available in some kind of database or other digital form or do you want/need to input it manually anyways?
If you input the data manually, then it is most likely just as all others said here, the time to develop your own solution would be huge compared to just learn and work into one of the existing spreadsheed apps like excel... It could only make sense to develop your own solution in a large scale environment, e.g. when you need a few users to work with it and they are not teachable regarding using the spreadsheed app

Yes, the person would enter certain stats manually. For example. A person would enter the time someone came in and enter when they left. That person would be able to look at a particular webpage later and see how many hours that person spent doing a particular task (and no this has nothing to do with timesheets or getting paid)

[lingyi]

You could use Google Sheets, Create a form [and add formulas, lookup tables for data] and Embed into webpage.

What you're asking for would take a few minutes.

Stop trying to recreate a well proven and designed wheel.

[Cornucopia]

Agree with lingyi, the back end could be most any data store (excel, csv, sql, etc), and the front end for end user would be an entry and/or edit form, web-based so can easily access it and can be customized to follow the flow you want to direct them to.
Can be done with some massaging & convincing in Excel, can be done much easier in MS Access (though that can get into issues with cloud sharing and file locking). Can be done MUCH easier with Gsheets or with SmartSheet (which are both cloud-based and have no sharing issues).

Scott