Workbook specification

With RingtailXL, the user drafts a specification of a Workbook, rather than the Workbook itself.  Whenever the Workbook is required, RingtailXL will generate it.  Once generated, like any other Workbook, it can be saved.  However it need not be - provided the specification file is kept, it can be regenerated in identical form at any time.

 

The development process using RingtailXL is faster and more transparent than hand crafting directly into Excel, and the resulting Workbooks are well structured, following generally accepted rules of safe spreadsheeting, and fully documented.

 

Drafting the specification takes place at three levels.

 

A “Component” defines a group of adjacent rows on one of the calculation sheets of the Workbook.  It also defines which of those rows represent the import of data into the Workbook, and what the structure of that data should be.

 

Once sufficient Components have been drafted to undertake all the calculation the Workbook needs to undertake, these are strung into a single “Skeleton” of the calculation rows in the Workbook.  In the Skeleton, importantly, a set of checks can be defined to monitor the correctness of the computations being carried out.

 

A Skeleton is then loaded into the “Model” where the final structural details are input, scenarios of data can be defined and stored and templates made of the output in the form of Reports and Charts, designed to be printed out in hard copy, that the Workbook is intended to generate.  The multiple scenarios of data which can be stored can in the resulting Workbook each be run through the same set of calculations.

 

From a Skeleton or a Model, the user can drill down into an element at a lower level, change that and replace the previous version of that element with the new, changed version.