Task 1 The spreadsheet has been a solid backbone.pdf
1. Answer: Task 1 The spreadsheet has been a solid backbone
Answer:
Task 1
The spreadsheet has been a solid backbone of accounting as well as financing for a decade,
although technology has dramatically changed now. Outdated tools like spreadsheets need
to evolve along with providing ways for better tools to keep that pace with all changing
responsibilities. Spreadsheets aren't collaborative and do not provide the ability in
monitoring the overall process of transaction matching, along with these manages this
within one place (Dou, et al., 2018). Spreadsheets also lack major functionality to manage
compliance initiatives. The risks consist of increased fees of audit along with associated
costs of compliance.
Data redundancy: Data redundancy takes place when the same data is kept within several
locations, along with the common occurrence within several businesses. Data redundancy
could result in a complicated process and inefficient coding. There is the use of spreadsheet
applications for managing crucial data; however, they have some limitations when
compared to the real database. The spreadsheet is inherently simpler and easier to
understand, along with are much more familiar to numerous people when compared to the
databases (Mack, et al., 2018). Due to data dependency within the spreadsheets, the same
data could be stored in several locations of the same spreadsheet.
Data independence: Data independence is a crucial characteristic that allows changing the
structure without making any changes within the programs. There is an existence of data
independence when the characteristics of data storage are changed without impeding the
ability of the program in accessing that data (Bøgholm, et al., 2019). The logical schema isn't
changed, although some storage space or data is altered due to optimization or
reorganization. Logical data independence within the spreadsheets is much tougher to
achieve when compared to physical data independence, as these are highly dependent upon
the data's logical structure used to access them.
Data consistency: Data inconsistency is the same data discrepancy within the spreadsheets.
It means that a minimum of 2 data is entered within the spreadsheet in another format.
Within the spreadsheets, such data inconsistency could take place between the cells. Fixing
2. the data for making this consistent through the spreadsheets is also quite time-consuming.
It takes time from all other crucial works for fixing the past mistakes (Azam, et al., 2019).
Such a process forces in wasting time due to technical errors. Also, different programs,
applications, and software have their systems for putting in along with processing data.
Hence, this becomes quite tough for transferring inconsistent data within another system.
Data integrity: Spreadsheets have been a major area of issues of data integrity for several
years. A huge challenge is how to manage, maintain, along with validating data integrity
generated with the use of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets' data integrity is quite crucial as they
generate crucial data which have an impact upon the data. There could be negative impacts
due to a lack of data integrity within the spreadsheets, as these are used for manipulating
data generated (de Man & Strandhagen, 2018). Lack of inventory is the major indicator of
lack of knowledge about overall spreadsheets needing validation along with should meet all
requirements of data integrity.
Data security: Spreadsheets give the ability in protecting all work if this is preventing
anyone from opening the workbook without any password, providing read-only access to
the workbook, and protecting the worksheet to ensure any unnecessary changes are not
made. As opposed to the dedicated system needing access for logging in, the spreadsheets
could be disseminated quite easily anywhere, to anyone with simple sending of the email. It
makes this easy for the dishonest or disgruntled employee in sharing customer data along
with leads with external contacts. With numerous people using one spreadsheet, as well as
with several calculations and edits taking place at once, this is natural that the spreadsheets
would include some kind of error (Koch, 2018).
The scale of data sharing: Sharing spreadsheets might sometimes result in document
locking or unreadable content. Such errors could unshare that shared workbook with the
users. The users wouldn't be any longer able in saving the data to that shared spreadsheet
file. Hence, all users could save their workbooks individually only to the local computers,
which could result in possessing the same spreadsheet file's different copies (Awad, et al.,
2020). Such errors could be rising due to corruption within the spreadsheet file. The files
with corruption still could be opening as well as functioning; however, at any point, that
corruption could cause some issues.
Tables are used by the databases for storing along with retrieving information. The
databases are relational, which means data between the tables could be cross-references
and linked. In the relational database, all data within the table could be related as per
common concepts and keys (Birch, et al., 2018). Databases could incorporate all other kinds
of information easily. Databases could accommodate downloads of huge file sizes along with
high volumes. As information is stored more efficiently by the databases, volumes of data
could be handled by these databases that could be unmanageable within the spreadsheets
(Goelman & Dietrich, 2018). Also, there is a record limitation in spreadsheets, whereas
databases don't have any such limitation. Updating databases is easier than updating the
3. spreadsheets, particularly if the same data is maintained within multiple spreadsheets or
records.
Within the databases, all regulatory standards are updated within one table, along with
would be instantly available for every reporting query of such associated data. Additionally,
databases could update all records in bulk. Though data within the spreadsheets could be
filtered as well as sorted, the databases have wide querying functionality, which could
retrieve cross-reference records within multiple tables, every record matching the criteria,
along with performing complicated aggregate calculations over multiple tables. Hence,
databases provide more flexibility for sorting along with presenting data in several ways
that are almost impossible for these spreadsheets (Shaltry, 2020). Every database is
designed in referring to the data without loading every data within the memory. Hence,
databases operate much quicker than spreadsheets while handling huge datasets, whereas
there are memory limitations for the spreadsheets.
Task 2
ER Diagram
Task 3
Student
COLUMN NAME
PRIMARY KEY/FOREIGN KEY
FORMAT
SAMPLE DATA
Student_ID
22. Foreign Key
Integer
3001
References
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