Sharing Calcs in the office

[RFreund]

Question - If you have created calculations for excel or mathcad or really any program you use to get your work done. Do you share these openly with colleagues or do you wait until someone asks? Is there a standard 'protocol' for sharing/asking/offering?
I am still an EIT and work a small company (no large company experience) - me, the boss, and a part timer. However we are bringing on another employee full time who is slightly more experienced than I am. I currently keep all my calcs on our local server so really anyone can access them. I have created quite a few spreadsheats, etc for work that we do. I don't think I have a problem sharing them and I'd like to have them improved.

What do you guys do or have done?

EIT

 

[ztengguy]

I think that if you created at work with work time and equipment, they are work property. I would want them shared, so they get used and checked, and double checked. Just make sure you protect them from being re-saved back on the local server, make them read only and also put a pop up box warning the user to do a save as, otherwise the integrity of the spreadsheet can be blown if someone fat fingers in a value and you dont know it.

 

[ishvaaag]

Well, I have shared many in the internet, and left all I brought in one team I worked with when I left. I doubt in that case they are profiting at all, no one there by then seemed to have nor the interest, nor the time, nor level enough to properly make good use of them. In big offices it surely is different, with all the protocols ... even that office had its burden of them. The company may want to have all the work retained as his intelectual property etc... an entire world of property rights is messing the matter with decisions both favouring the companies and the actual authors... Really the true protection is that all the lives are different, so no one is to do what you whatever they try. Of course misuse and strict robbery of ideas exist etc in our imperfect world so what one decides to do uses to be something from their experience and mindset. Some will jealously secret their things as valuables where maybe even more will share all ... one can't be what is not.

 

[Lion06]

I have many spreadsheets - some I share voluntarily, others I share if a use for someone comes up in conversation.

Whenever I write spreadsheets, though, I always lock the cells except the input cells. This way the formulas can't be messed up by anyone (even myself, accidentially).

I also ask for feedback on them - to make them easier to use or easier to read or just more clear in the presentation.

 

[connectegr]

Unless your employment agreement addresses your work product or you work as an independent contractor, I believe the calculations are property of the company. Other employees should not be in a position of "reinventing the wheel". This is inefficient and costly to your employer and clients. Io support independent thinking and improvement of our company software by all employees. But these developments are intended for the improvement of our company service. If I found my employee to be holding beneficial material or software a proprietary, this may lead to discussion of their place on our team.

http://www.FerrellEngineering.com

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Why would you even ask?? You developed them on company property on company time and you USE them to be more productive. Obviously, they would help the WHOLE company and might even get you a RAISE or a BONUS!

Worked for me more than once!!

 

[TLHS]

It really depends on whether I think the worksheet is usable safely. I've made all sorts of mathcad sheets and things that I share around, but they all have copious amounts of explainatory text and a clear workflow. I'll also put in initial default values that are conservative. I always have someone check the actual sheet as well, not just confirm the output via whatever method they'd like, before I'm willing to share with anyone.

If it's something I'm using as a one off or scratch work, or I've thrown the output into my notes as part of other items that explain it I'm not sharing that. I may understand what I've done and it may be clear what the inputs and outputs mean, but it doesn't mean I've checked edge cases or I may have made it in a way that isn't necessarily generalized.

Basically, I want to minimize the chance of someone taking the sheet, plugging in numbers without completely getting it and doing something dangerous.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

GIGO - garbage in - garbage out. Been around since the dawn of computers and will continue to haunt us forever!!

 

[EngineeringAdam]

Share them with your peers, I do, and my spreadsheets are better for it. You need someone to review, and what better way than use those that work with you?

Although, it is possible that an inexperienced engineer might misuse your creations without understanding them, so caution is sometimes needed in situations like these.

 

[RFreund]

Thanks for the responses they are pretty much inline with what I was thinking. I do want the calcs to get better and I don't have issue sharing them however some are harder to understand and use than others so I wanted to see what the 'norm' was. As for developing them on 'company time' I guess that depends on what you consider company time - 10:00 pm on a Friday night, Saturday morning? I joke (sorta) but I understand what you are saying. Which leads to a separate discussion of 'do all engineers feel obligated to work until work is done'. I was raised under the roof of a family owned G.C. business so if there was work we worked - 40hrs, 80hrs whatever was needed. It really didn't occur to me that this was not how all people operated until my wife started working for a large business company where they worked 9-5 period (well most people). Anyway I don't want to side track the thread.

Basically the answer seems to be yes, share as seemingly fit (don't need to share scratch paper) but try implement some sort of caution.

EIT

 

[Lion06]

I typically do work until the work is gone, but it's never gone. I work at home in the evenings and on the weekends to try to keep up with everything. It's certainly not easy.

 

[dik]

I do spreadsheets and details all the time (at home), but freely pass these on to others in the office.

Dik

 

[IRstuff]

I share when asked. We've discussed this sort of thing at work; actually I've discussed it. But without some sort of Wiki, it's essentially impossible to manage or make feasible. I've got some stuff from previous coworkers, like hundreds of Mathcad files, but I rarely look through them because there's usually insufficient documentation, or even just description of what particular problem the sheet was trying to solve.

My thought was that each design topic would have a Wiki page, with basics about the author, description of the problem being solved, variable descriptions, limitations, etc., all coupled with a decent search engine. Only then could such a repository being to make sense.

As for work; sure you put in what you can, but it's a hit and miss sort of thing. Some companies just don't engender that type of behavior, while others engender more of a "start-up" mentality. It's just depends on the immediate organization that you belong to. I've been incredibly fortunate in never having had a group I didn't like to work with.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[Lutfi]

I share and encourage feedback and improvement. I think everyone is correct in saying that they were developed on company time and doing a project, so sharing is perfectly fine.

The feedback is great because others may have better ways to program. For instance, many years ago, AI used to manually input sectional properties into my spreadsheet. One day another engineer shared with me AISC data table that he had in excel and I added that to mine so now I pick the section from pull down menu and all data is automatically read into the spreadsheet.


Regards,
Lutfi

 

[paddingtongreen]

As has been said, If they are produced by an employee as part of his/her work, they belong to the company and should be available for its benefit, but that is not the main problem to my way of thinking.

If they have not been independently checked and, preferably, in something to be used multiple times, peer reviewed, they are a black box. I would not sign off as checker or reviewer on a calculation that incorporated the product of such an undocumented sheet or program.

Michael.
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

 

[dik]

That's why I do them at home... they're mine! Due to my wife's illness she needs relative constant supervision... I don't like all her TV programs, so I sit and work on my laptop...

Dik

 

[Once20036]

I agree with all of the above, re sharing with co-workers, done on company time, etc, but here's another question (or two):

If I am planning on leaving a position, can I take a copy of all of this with me (Sheets that I personally created).
Granted - I wrote all of the sheets and could easily re-write all of the sheets, but are there any legal and/or ethical ramifications to taking a copy?

How about CAD files of projects I designed and drafted that I might like to look at for future reference?

 

[dik]

If you did them on company time, then you shouldn't... but...

 

[MiketheEngineer]

BUT change the name and re-use them!!

 

[AELLC]

Caution with re-using drawings. Change the text fonts and/or text wording so that a standard detail sheet (for instance) is not an exact copy.