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

 

[bookowski]

Yes share them and yes when you leave take them with you. Technically it is the property of the company but they are not really that valuable and trying to protect them is pointless. There are tons of good (and bad) spreadsheets floating around out there, it's unlikely that anything you've written is so groundbreaking as to warrant pursuing you for taking them with you. It is beneficial for you because most likely someone will 'break' it by doing something you didn't' think of which will help you to improve it.

I typically lock all cells and then write the password in the sheet (you'll forget it eventually). That way a user can change it intentionally but not by accident.

I worked in a very large office and although they tried to discourage rogue spreadsheets it isn't possible to stop it, it's the nature of our work that we will always need a unique sheet or want to improve what is there.

 

[TLHS]

How cookie cutter a design office were you in that you weren't supposed to modify sheets?

 

[bookowski]

Medium sized I guess, a few hundred employees spread over a few offices. I think it's probably typical at companies this size but maybe not. I understand the logic - all sheets were supposed to be approved and follow company design philosophy/methodology etc. but in reality it doesn't work.