Computer Applications for Business (2) Last Week Established range of existing skills Considered place of IT in Business Discussed relevant packages Learnt some terminology This week Sources of Information Written Communications Introduction to spreadsheets More about Hardware and Languages Machine Code and Assembly Language Introductory Excel practical

Relevant Topics Word Processing Electronic Mail WWW Browser Setting up and using styles Complex layouts Simple desktop publishing Electronic Mail How to make it work for you WWW Browser Getting information from the Internet Optimizing the use of search engines Digital Imaging Introduction to Databases Where they’re useful How to set them up More on Spreadsheets Presenting data clearly Selecting graphical displays Project Planning Concept of critical path Gantt and PERT charts Internet publishing Writing HTML Producing and processing surveys Unlikely to get hands-on experience with software for: Accounting Customer relationship mgt

Getting Business Information Formal sources Collected information (encyclopaedias, directories…) Books on specific subjects – more detail Learned Journals – specialized, fairly current Magazines and newspapers – current, lower accuracy Online databases (usually by subscription) CD-ROM databases (e.g. Postcodes, Phone numbers) Less controlled sources Primarily the Internet – anyone can put anything there Cranks, iconoclasts, liberals, extremists… Also bulletin boards, computer conferences Including VLE and moderated conferences on information providers like MSN, CompuServe, AOL, LineOne

Information Sources at KAC Library Reasonable stock of books, with on-line catalogue Other publications available on inter-library loan OPAC (On-line Public Access Catalogue) Some other on-line services (ask librarians) Limited range of periodicals CD Server Intranet & VLE – Growing collection of internal info KAC web pages – including the Business site http://www.wkac.ac.uk/bm/ Internet Need Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc) County Library has old newspapers on microfilm

Extracting the Information If it’s on paper, you can copy bits of it But only for private use and study, and not too much! Up to a chapter of a book (or 5%), paper from journal (Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988) Similarly, you can capture or print on-line information Not always easy on commercial services – may charge Remember the originator still owns the copyright Best thing is to add some value of your own Pick out key points and make notes Acknowledge your sources Harvard style for references – full title in bibliography Knight, Jane (1999) Computing for Business (Financial Times) and at the point where you quote, put “Knight (1999)”

Written Presentation Not just about facts – Need to engage reader’s:- Interest Get your report read before others on the reader’s desk Respect Encourage reader to see you as bright and well-informed Understanding Make sure that the message the reader gets is the same as the one you meant to convey Express ideas as simply as possible, avoiding ambiguity Intuition (more of this later) Decision-taking is rarely purely logical and deductive Successful executives often short-circuit the process

Engaging Interest Make it visually interesting But not too fussy Easy-to-read typeface We learn to read with proportionally-spaced lower case Then practise on printed books (typographical, mixed case) TYPESCRIPT IS HARD TO READ, ESPECIALLY IN UPPER-CASE Underscoring: emphasising text by making it harder to read Appropriate use of structure, emphasis and white space Headings, subheading, paragraphs, lists Possibly multi-column, tables, sidebars But not too fussy You can have too many fonts especially if they’re chosen from a range of typefaces Too many columns, sidebars and other visual effects

Getting Respect from the Reader Don’t label yourself as unworthy of respect Factual errors – if x is wrong, why should I believe y? Speling and gramatical mice-steaks Greengrocer’s apostrophes Avoiding howlers Make a “reasonableness check” on what you’ve said (are there enough potential customers available to support your sales forecast?) Look for wrong choice among homophones their, there, they’re principle, principal Licence (n), license (v); practice (n), practise (v) See Weiner, E (1983) Oxford Guide to English Usage What are the US spellings?

Help from the Word-processor Spelling Checkers Grate, but won’t report wear you use the wrong word Not a substitute for proper proof-reading But excellent for remedying “finger trouble” at keyboard Grammar Checkers May help, but they often jump to wildly wrong conclusions Use of the passive isn’t always bad True parsing of natural speech still beyond PC software Usually good for spotting clichés Readability indexes – help you avoid over-complexity Remember they’re very simple tools; counting words per sentence, letters per word The underlying concept may be harder than the English!

Structuring Documents A document has structure in order to: help get the message over ease the reader’s job in understanding enable the reader to save time lessen ambiguity and misunderstanding give perspective You may chose to fill in the structural elements out of sequence For example, Management Summary is often written last Most word-processors can help, with Outlining tools Primary requirement is to think about the reader What might be her questions, objections, hot issues?

Letter Structure Letterhead (usually sender’s address, logo etc.) Date Addressee (name, role, address) Salutation (“Dear Sirs,” “Dear Mr Nerk”) Not “Dear Fred Nerk” No, I don’t know how to deal with Ms/Miss/Mrs (usually err on the side of Ms, because I’d rather irritate traditionalists, and marital state is none of my business) Subject, references etc. Body of the letter Closing (what Knight calls the complimentary close – “Yours faithfully,” “Yours sincerely”)

Report Structure Front Matter Body Back Matter Title Page Management summary (the “right-brain stuff”) Tell the board what you are recommending Edition information, Preface Table of Contents (a doddle to make using Word) Body Logical Exposition, organized into chapters Tell middle-managers why you came to your conclusion Back Matter Appendices (facts to back up your exposition) Show technical people how your plan makes sense Index (if you need one – they’re hard work to make)

Spreadsheets Started of in Finance industry, as way of doing “what if” calculations to model business decisions If I charge x for each gizmo, and it costs y to build the production line, plus z for each gizmo I make What is profit at various production volumes? When will I pay for the initial investment and break even? Does it as a table of cells, each one related to another with a (usually) simple formula So cost of producing n gizmos is cost of production-line plus volume-related cost Profit is sales minus cost of production Done on paper – a pain to recalculate! Early PC application – that’s why the Apple II sold .

Simple Business Tasks Consider an Invoice For each item line, we have a quantity and a price and can derive a total cost for the items on the line Then need to add them up and usually add VAT to the total to get the invoice total Let’s lay out an invoice of that kind How do we get the computer to do the multiplication? What about doing the same on the next line? Is there a short cut to getting the total?

Using Excel Excel is the Microsoft Office Spreadsheet program You can start it from the Start menu Creates empty book of spreadsheets With three tabs at bottom for holding multiple sheets Usually you won’t start with an empty book, though New spreadsheet usually uses ideas from a previous one Best to load old one, Save it under a new name, then modify this to do what you want Another job for Windows Explorer

Cut, Copy and Paste The Clipboard Move/copy data via the clipboard Storage shared by all applications Each use usually overwrites previous contents Move/copy data via the clipboard Select data item Cut /Copy to the clipboard (Cut removes the source text) Position the Insertion Point at the target Paste Excel modifies formulae as it copies Usually does what you want The clipboard is a concept within Windows, and you can think of it as a hidden area of memory that holds whatever you choose to put on it. You transfer selected data to the clipboard with Edit Copy (or by pressing a Copy button on the toolbar). You can then Paste in the current contents of the clipboard (with Edit Paste). The clipboard is very versatile, and can hold text, graphics, and even files. That doesn’t mean that every program can interpret anything stored there by every other program, but there are defined standards to ensure that a useful subset of clipboard contents is always available. Within a collection such as Office 97, you can expect the full capabilities of the clipboard to be available. So when you store a piece of a Word table, you can expect other programs in the suite to be able to paste in not only the text, but also the font, and the fact that the clipboard contents are divided into cells. Edit Cut is similar to Copy, except that it automatically removes the selected area from the source document. Depending on application, this may happen immediately, or not until the data is pasted in to the target location. In addition, the clipboard contains hidden information about where the data was copied from, which will prove valuable later. Because there’s only one clipboard, every time you Copy or Cut, you overwrite what is there at the time. This is potentially a problem if you spot a couple of transposed words in the middle of a major move. Fortunately, most Windows applications let you drag selected text with the mouse, and drop it in a new location without needing to go through the clipboard.

Cut, Copy and Paste – Details The clipboard is a concept within Windows, and you can think of it as a hidden area of memory that holds whatever you choose to put on it. You transfer selected data to the clipboard with Edit Copy (or by pressing a Copy button on the toolbar). You can then Paste in the current contents of the clipboard (with Edit Paste). The clipboard is very versatile, and can hold text, graphics, and even files. That doesn’t mean that every program can interpret anything stored there by every other program, but there are defined standards to ensure that a useful subset of clipboard contents is always available. Within a collection such as Office XP, you can expect the full capabilities of the clipboard to be available. So when you store a piece of a Word table, you can expect other programs in the suite to be able to paste in not only the text, but also the font, and the fact that the clipboard contents are divided into cells. Edit Cut is similar to Copy, except that it automatically removes the selected area from the source document. Depending on application, this may happen immediately, or not until the data is pasted in to the target location. In addition, the clipboard contains hidden information about where the data was copied from, which will prove valuable later..

Modelling Business Problems Investment Decision often requires seeing what will happen in several possible scenarios If I charge x for each gizmo, and it costs y to build the production line, plus z for each gizmo I make What is profit at various production volumes? When will I pay for the initial investment and break even? Things aren’t all confined to columns this time Price, overhead and input cost need to be input Then outcome computed for each production volume How do we handle data outside main table columns?

Formulae in Excel Contents of a cell are treated as literal unless you signal that they are part of a formula; thus B1 + B2 will appear exactly as you typed it Formulae identified by = sign at start =B1+B2 will produce sum of these two cells Have seen Functions like SUM and AVERAGE (remember how Ranges are written A3:C7) You can name cells in field at left of formula bar: give a helpful name like “VAT rate” instead of co-ordinates To avoid co-ordinates changing on Copy/Move, prefix the co-ordinate with $ – e.g. $A$1

More about replication Dragging to replicate the contents of a cell Place cursor in bottom right of cell Drag horizontally or vertically Excel copies your cell into the cells you’re “painting” Like Copy/Paste, it adjusts what is copied Usually what you want – but not always! Adjusts column/row references So dragging a column total right will create a correct total on the next column to the right Increments numbers Dragging 1999 produces 2000 on right Or 1998 if you drag to the left The clipboard is a concept within Windows, and you can think of it as a hidden area of memory that holds whatever you choose to put on it. You transfer selected data to the clipboard with Edit Copy (or by pressing a Copy button on the toolbar). You can then Paste in the current contents of the clipboard (with Edit Paste). The clipboard is very versatile, and can hold text, graphics, and even files. That doesn’t mean that every program can interpret anything stored there by every other program, but there are defined standards to ensure that a useful subset of clipboard contents is always available. Within a collection such as Office 97, you can expect the full capabilities of the clipboard to be available. So when you store a piece of a Word table, you can expect other programs in the suite to be able to paste in not only the text, but also the font, and the fact that the clipboard contents are divided into cells. Edit Cut is similar to Copy, except that it automatically removes the selected area from the source document. Depending on application, this may happen immediately, or not until the data is pasted in to the target location. In addition, the clipboard contains hidden information about where the data was copied from, which will prove valuable later. Because there’s only one clipboard, every time you Copy or Cut, you overwrite what is there at the time. This is potentially a problem if you spot a couple of transposed words in the middle of a major move. Fortunately, most Windows applications let you drag selected text with the mouse, and drop it in a new location without needing to go through the clipboard.

Spreadsheet Hands-on See Practical Exercises handout: http://www.wkac.ac.uk/bm/samples/BS1904-practice.doc (You only need pages 2-4 today) 1. Creating a Spreadsheet  2. Changing the Look and Style 3. Adding Formulae  4. Adding a Row to the Spreadsheet Making a Graph of the Data (optional today)

Downloading Materials As ever, the place to look is the Business web-site http://www.wkac.ac.uk/bm/ You should add it to your favourites now Once you have the home page, navigation should be easy Select Business Modules near top of LH pane Select this (BS1905) module from the list that shows You’ll then get a browser-friendly summary of the module handbook Everything useful for the week should be shown there Don’t forget you can right-click and Save Target As

Questions?