The scenario is as follows. Consider a protected XLSafe PRO spreadsheet stored on a company’s server. The administrator would like only a certain number of . . . → Read More: Protect Excel Spreadsheets stored on a network server]]> More and more of our clients are requesting the network capabilities of XLSafe PRO and thus we decided to create a blog post to explain this superb feature further.

The scenario is as follows. Consider a protected XLSafe PRO spreadsheet stored on a company’s server. The administrator would like only a certain number of internal employees to access the spreadsheet.

Moreover, these employees should not be able to copy the spreadsheet to other computers or USB drives. Furthermore, the protected file will also be sent to external clients who will require authorisation for use of the file on each computer.

The multi-license version of XLSafe has been designed specifically for this scenario. Each authorised employee will install the multi-license version of XLSafe on their machine and obtain an activation key from the license administrator. They will then be able to access any XLSafe spreadsheet stored on the server without going through the activation process.

However, the XLSafe files will still require authorisation for other machines that do not have the multi-license version of XLSafe installed. This diagram explains the scenario further.

You can also find more information on our user guide http://www.datasafexl.com/WebHelp/Basic_Functions/Unlocking_XLSafe_files.htm

Companies interested in a demo or a quote for the multi-license version of XLSafe PRO should contact us at info@datasafexl.com

We would like to share with you one great solution that has . . . → Read More: Create Documents with Expiry Date using Microsoft Excel and XLSafe PRO]]> It’s been a while since our last post but it has been an incredibly busy year for Datasafexl! Our Microsoft Excel consultants have been creating some fantastic ideas and tools and have helped numerous businesses with complex Excel-based solutions all year long.

We would like to share with you one great solution that has been built for one of our clients, an Excel based tool for sending confidential documents based in Microsoft Excel to external customers.

Our client was extremely concerned about the privacy and confidential information sent to third-parties. Sensitive contracts drafted in Microsoft Word and sent as PDF documents was simply not secure enough as the data can be easily compromised and copied from PDF documents.

DataSafeXL consultants came to the rescue. We have built a tool based on our award-winning security platform XLSafe PRO which allowed the customer to embed Microsoft Word documents into the secure environment of XLSafe PRO in Microsoft Excel. The client could then send the “.xlsm” document spreadsheets to customers and third parties with the following benefits derived from XLSafe PRO:

1. Users were not able to copy and paste the content of the documents

2. Users were not able to send the documents to other computers without obtaining an activation key from our client

3. Users were not able to print the documents

4. The documents had an expiry date after which the users were not able to access the files

The client was extremely satisfied and assured that our protection solution was far more robust than creating PDF documents. For more information on this project as well as other custom built tools feel free to contact us at info@datasafexl.com

http://www.ExcelEverest.com | Learning excel tutorial has a vastly underestimated importance for the career trajectory of an entry level employee in today’s data-driven organizations.

You’re there, looking sharp in your robe and about to walk up on stage at your college graduation. Thankfully, you scored a job . . . → Read More: How Leaning Excel Early Changes Your Career’s Trajectory]]> How Leaning Excel Early Changes Your Career’s Trajectory

http://www.ExcelEverest.com | Learning excel tutorial has a vastly underestimated importance for the career trajectory of an entry level employee in today’s data-driven organizations.

You’re there, looking sharp in your robe and about to walk up on stage at your college graduation. Thankfully, you scored a job after toiling away with your nose in the books for four years. And not only that, it’s a job you’re excited about. Maybe you’re about to kick off your career in a consulting or banking firm, or maybe it’s something completely different, like human resources. Either way, you think it will set you up for a great future.

So what will your transition to the world of Corporate America be like and what will make you successful? There’s a few things. First, know that you’re starting on the ground level. You are the person who executes not plans, and you’ll be the one using tools to dig through numbers, toss together PowerPoint presentations, and make your boss and company shine. This is how much of the corporate world works: Those on the ground floor do the details and those up top plan and point in a certain direction.

That being said, you’ll need a few tools to succeed in the corporate world. Of course, you’ll need to be an apt communicator, a logical thinker, etc, but hopefully, these are the sorts of things you paid a fortune to learn in college. What you’ll quickly find you’re lacking, however, is a deep understanding of the tools that allow businesses to run – things like Microsoft Excel.

Coming in to a new job, it’s more or less guaranteed you’ll be asked to use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It’s also likely that of these, you’ll be most familiar with Word, reasonably familiar with PowerPoint, and the least familiar with Excel. And guess which tool our research shows is the most valuable to your career? Yup, Excel. In fact, these insights are what prompted our team of Excel ninjas to make Excel Everest, and interactive Excel tutorial designed for quickly ramping you up to speed in Microsoft Excel.

There are countless subtle things you’ll be asked to do in the workplace, from collect data, make charts, perform analyses, and many of those will be made easier and quicker in Excel. And the funny thing is, that as soon as you become known as the person who an effortlessly manage data and providing meaningful insight to the organization through numbers, you’ll become the person who’s trusted with the bigger problems.

Being great in Excel early on will help build your reputation inside and organization and will, we’re confident you’ll find, change the trajectory of your career.

// Excel Everest (http://www.ExcelEverest.com) is an Excel tutorial built to provide an interactive Excel learning experience using real-world scenarios and examples. It’s packed with 47 topics, 155 exercises, and 339 buttons. Your progress through Excel Everest is automatically tracked and graded based on your successful completion of the exercises. Organizations such as Google, PlayCore and Hymans Roberston UK use Excel Everest as the Excel tutorial to train their employees.

The particular client’s requirements were as follows: Authorised Employees 

In this topic we will be discussing how you can greatly improve the security of your spreadsheets and protect your intellectual property. Distributing Microsoft Excel spreadsheets outside an organisation . . . → Read More: Protecting the intellectual property of your spreadsheets]]> This article has been featured in various web publications. Feel free to request permission to re-print or distribute this article by contacting us at info@datasafexl.com

In this topic we will be discussing how you can greatly improve the security of your spreadsheets and protect your intellectual property. Distributing Microsoft Excel spreadsheets outside an organisation via e-mail and sharing spreadsheets internally amongst employees on network drives and other mediums is probably the most common course for most businesses.

In today’s world of increasing IT sophistication as well as new security threats and information risk, the methods of sharing sensitive spreadsheets described above would appear to be crude to say the least.

Coming to the rescue, DataSafeXL  has been offering bespoke security solutions to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and has even developed some powerful software known as XLSafe PRO & VBASafe so you can truly secure your organisations’ spreadsheets.

With XLSafe PRO & VBASafe you can:

Secure your confidential data
XLSafe PRO files employ an innovative security system which protects the contents of your spreadsheets from unauthorised use and unauthorised access.

Your Microsoft ® EXCEL spreadsheets will remain protected when your files get stolen, lost or transmitted to other computers either accidentally or intentionally.

Protect against password recovery software
XLSafe PRO files are strongly protected against commercial password recovery software and other third party intrusion tools. This is achieved through the XLSafe PRO advanced protection platform and security algorithms.

Specify ‘safe’ computers to access spreadsheets
When you purchase a multiple licenses version of XLSafe PRO you have the ability to authorise specific computers which can open the protected spreadsheets without going through the XLSafe PRO activation process.

Restrict distribution of spreadsheets
You can distribute your protected files to their intended users without worrying that these users will pass on your spreadsheets to other people.

This can be achieved with XLSafe PRO through:
• – using the built-in key generator to create activation keys
• – using the online activation server of DataSafeXL
• – using an XLSafe PRO password
Protect spreadsheet structure:
With XLSafe, you can easily maintain the design of your spreadsheets and protect it from accidental or intentional changes.

XLSafe offers advanced tools to easily protect any aspect of your spreadsheets.

Hide and secure formulae/ cell contents
You can protect/ hide the contents of cells containing formulae, text labels and constant values with a click of a button.

You can also easily specify input cells and leave them unprotected based on their cell color.

Hardware activation
XLSafe PRO files employ a pioneering activation system to recognise whether a computer is authorised to open a spreadsheet based on its hardware configuration.
In this way, you are re-assured that only intended users will have access to your files.

Time expiration capabilities
For each XLSafe PRO file you can choose to set:
• – a specific expiry date
• – a trial period of spreadsheet use on a user’s machine
• – a subscription period after which a user needs to re-activate the spreadsheet

XLSafe PRO files employ an advanced protection system which prevents back-dating of system clock settings.

Scramble your VBA Code
VBASafe converts your spreadsheets’ VBA code to unreadable obfuscated code in a matter of seconds, no matter how complicated this is. This makes it extremely hard for someone to understand and follow its logic. VBASafe also automatically removes all blank lines and comments from your VBA code, thus making it even harder to interpret for a malicious user.

No matter how complex or straightforward your organisations’ spreadsheets are, DataSafeXL can recommend the right solution and efficiently bridge your spreadsheet security gap.

Feel free to contact info@datasafexl.com for a free consultation, request case studies and anything else you might want to ask.

Readers of . . . → Read More: The Diversified Toolbelt: Appreciating Excel in the Context of Other Apps]]> I’ll be honest – I’m new to blogging. But as someone who’s taught the application of Excel to real world data management problems and business solutions for more than decade now, I think that the majority of Excel-focused blogs have suffered from one fundamental issue : Namely the purity of their focus.

Readers of blogs on Excel, expect to discover nuggets of value that they haven’t yet encountered as users. Often they’ll succeed. However too often what they discover are ultimately suboptimal solutions; retrofits that in their focus on Excel capabilities fail to appreciate the vast number of well designed tools that Excel is capable of leveaging through integration. Examples of these applications range from mapping applications (e.g. MS MapPoint) to statistical solutions (e.g. XLStat). They can bring to bear the state of the art in small scale optimization (e.g. Solver, which can only marginally be considered a separate app) to the best of breed in simulation and risk analysis (e.g. the Palisades suite including RiskOptimizer).

Now, don’t get me wrong -I like PivotTables and the capabilities Excel has developed along these lines. But as someone who teaches, conducts research and consults… it’s frankly scary how much people who use PivotTables take the results for granted. Unless you really know what PivotTables are providing in the summary figures they give, and the role that sample size can have on the confidence around those numbers, you can be in a world of pain if you attempt to draw conclusions directly from PivotTable results – And I think most people would like to retain their jobs these days, so a modest level of care really should be exercises. Unfortunately PivotTables don’t raise alarms for people when innappropriate conclusions are being drawn from their all too convenient output. Here a bit more of a statistical background for managers would help greatly, but so would the knowledge that their are other applications that can be linked to Excel to help them in interpretation (and to avoid misinterpretation).

I also think more fundamentally that individuals grow through diversified experiences. Here diversification comes in the form of experience with multiple applications developed by firms other than MicroSoft. Still more strength can be gained when individual start understanding how to make these applications communicate with one another. This was basically one of the premises of the development of my elective courses at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, and ultimately my text on the subject “Excel Basics to Blackbelt”. Anyone who sees some of the examples I work with (either because they’ve studied the book or participated in our group on LinkedIn) knows I’m no Excel purist. I “appreciate” Excel – and honestly I’ll fall back on Excel for a lot of tasks that come naturally to the environment… but I’ll also rely on Google docs spreadsheets for fast and easy file sharing. And I’ll integrate Google’s service with Excel when the two complement each other. Sorry for those at Google and MS that might prefer loyalty to one team – I’m a flip-flopper when it comes to Apps. And not ashamed of it. It helps me get things done, and frankyl with the rate of new app development for real world solution development it’s been a valuable stand to take. I encourage people to take it up themselves a bit.