Lotus to Excel (2000)

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Hi,

Im an IT Manager, and Ive got some users who insist with sticking with Lotus.

Can anyone help me with :

1. Convincing them that Excel is the best way forward (this only effects 5 out of 70 users)
2. Is there anything that Lotus can do that Excel cant?
3. When converting a Lotus file, the size of the file seems to increase tremendously – any reason why – any solutions/macros to resolve this. I seem to remember a colleague once said it had something to do with cell formatting.
4. Any UK based companies/consultants that could help with changeover process.

Thanks in advance.

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At first I thought “What the heck is wrong with those people?!” A moment’s reflection put me in their shoes; what if I was forced to use Lotus 123 or WordPerfect? (I might just start looking for a new job.) So, I’ll take their side in the argument and ask “Why do you want to make them switch anyway?”

If they must share plain old data, either spreadsheet will work. If they must share specially formatted data, make them use both, but don’t take away their 123 (this is a nice compromise that might just well bring them over to the dark side some day ).

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Do you have spreadsheet experience? It is always helpful if the user can speak to another person who works with spreadsheets.
Occasionally our company is asked to go in and give “transition seminars” just comparing feature sets between software packages. Usually a few demonstrations and Q&A time do the trick. Making sure training is available also calms transition nerves. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend anyone in the UK.
For me, one of the big things that impressed me moving from (a much older version) 1-2-3 to Excel was the data consolidation command and the ease of filtering.
I swear one of the biggest pains was the difference in behaviour between the Delete key and the Delete menu, it caused much language.

HTH

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I am an IT manager working in Saudi Arabia. We took the decision to switch from Lotus SmartSuite to Office about a year ago after Lotus abandoned Arabic support.

We had close to 200 SmartSuite users who all of a sudden were confronted with Office. The approach I used to convince them to use Office was to offer training and lots of support. To date over 85% of our users now use Office. (The suggestion that Office experience might look good on the resume didn’t do any harm either).

The users I have who still use SmartSuite tell me that Excel is very hard to use compared to 123. I presume this is a subjective thing as I have used both and find no real differences between them other than things like the format of formula entry.

My suggestion would be to give the remaining 5 users access to Excel and let them try it out. As others have suggested, if there is no problem with them staying with 123 then let them. I’m sure after what I have seen here that in time the remaining 123 users will switch, if for no other reason than not wanting to be left out.

Regards,

Kevin Bell

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If their software feed their needs, why would you change it ?
Learnig, searching, frustrations, …. where is the productivity ?

On the other hand, if you can convince them to switch, don’t forget to tell them the help they can found in this Lounge

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