This discussion of decision support design starts by jumping into the basics of the Excel development environment. Figure 2.1 provides an annotated view of what people typically see when opening up a new file in Excel. Only a few key elements of this interface are central to our early discussion.

Excel files are called workbooks. They contain any number of worksheets (i.e., spreadsheets) that can be used in tandem. Ninety-five percent of the time, Excel has been relegated to storing information, largely by those who don't know what else Excel can do. Not that storing info in Excel is bad, but there are often better alternatives available for storage, such as databases in the case of very large sets of data. Functionally the storage capability of Excel represents only the bare tip of this technological iceberg.

Regardless, knowing how the cell structure in the spreadsheet works is a good place to start and is essential to our future discussion.

Cells in spreadsheets can contain:

• Fixed data: Data you've entered, numerical or otherwise.

• Formatting: Background color, border thickness, font type, and so on.

• Labels: References other than the standard ColumnRow reference.

• Comments: Notes regarding the contents.

• Formulae: Can be mathematical/statistical, text based, or a range of other types such as logic based or search oriented.

• Live data links: Data that are drawn from an externally linked source, such as a database or the Internet.

Fixed data

Data entry in Excel is about as basic as it gets – just click and type.