Tools for spreadsheet auditing

Davis, John S.

doi:10.1006/ijhc.1996.0061

Cited by 48 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, it pays no attention to any relations between formulae. Davis (1996) introduces two auditing tools for spreadsheets: the on-line data dependency diagram that will be described later, and the arrow tool. The arrow tool is closely related to the Excel 7.0 auditing.…”

Section: Auditing Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, it pays no attention to any relations between formulae. Davis (1996) has proposed enhancing the arrow tool by labeling each arrow with the reference and the name relating to the cell at the other end of the arrow. This labeling scheme makes references easier to understand especially when the other end of an arrow is outside the screen.…”

Section: Arrow Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even if the modification concerns a single cell only, it is hard to find out what other cells depend on that value and should those cells be changed, too. Davis (1996) gives an extensive treatment on the need of auditing tools for spreadsheets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Spreadsheet visualization tools (e.g., Davis, 1996;Hendry & Green, 1993;Isakowitz & al., 1995;Lakshmanan & al., 1998;Ronen & al., 1989) have been developed for various purposes: error detection, debugging, comprehension, documenting, etc. As a result, the amount of user assistance may vary from tool to tool.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…users may find it tedious and confusing to determine the correspondence between separate visualization and the spreadsheet itself (Davis, 1996), so superimposition is needed • the visualization does not depend on input values: as the structure of calculations does not depend on specific values, neither should a visualization depend on them • the visualization can be constructed automatically: users will probably not use tools that require much user intervention…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Modeling Spreadsheet Audit: A Rigorous Approach to Automatic Visualization

Sajaniemi¹

2000

Journal of Visual Languages & Computing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Computations in spreadsheets are hard to grasp and consequently many errors remain unnoticed. The problem with the hidden errors lies in the invisibility of the structure of calculations. As a result, auditing and visualization tools are required to make spreadsheets easier to comprehend and errors easier to be detected. This paper presents a theoretical model of spreadsheets, and describes various spreadsheet auditing mechanisms employing the model. Moreover, two new visualization mechanisms are introduced.The model reflects not only current spreadsheet systems but also the way people actually use spreadsheets. Theoretically, it is impossible to check the correctness of a spreadsheet without a formal definition of its computations, but our hope is to find visualizations that point out parts of spreadsheets that contain anomalies, i.e., potential locations of errors. The model helps us to understand how such anomalies can be defined.

show abstract

Section: Auditing Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Arrow Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Modeling Spreadsheet Audit: A Rigorous Approach to Automatic Visualization

Sajaniemi¹

2000

Journal of Visual Languages & Computing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

EXACT: A tool for comprehending VBA-based Excel spreadsheet applications

Amalfitano

Simone

Fasolino

et al. 2016

J. Softw. Evol. and Proc.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spreadsheet applications are widely adopted by millions of end users from several application domains and provide strategic support to many business, scientific, industrial, and organizational processes. These applications are usually developed by rapid application development processes, exploiting host scripting languages allowing the basic spreadsheets to provide complex functionality, business rules, and user interfaces. Several factors complicate the comprehension of these applications because they are usually developed and maintained by end users without specific software engineering skills, grow over time, are not adequately documented, and do not present explicit separation between data, business logic, and user interface layers. This paper presents a reverse engineering tool intended to support the comprehension of Excel spreadsheet applications developed using the Visual Basic for Application programming language. The tool has been implemented as an add-in that extends the Excel working environment by providing analysis and visualization features. It is able to extract information about the elements composing the analyzed Excel spreadsheet application, the functionality it exposes through its user interface, and the dependencies among its cells. This information is provided by means of interactive views. The validity of the tool has been assessed by a qualitative case study performed with professional end users from an automotive industrial domain.

show abstract