Source Control Of Spreadsheets

[ChloeRadshaw]

I am pretty sure this comes up regularly - How does this group keep spreadsheets under source control?

[Oorang]

Do you want to control the data (the xls files themselves), or just the code?
Do you have access to a server?
What is your budget?

[ChloeRadshaw]

The xls files and the code - I know you can export Bas and class modules into plain text for source controlling VBA code.

Have you used this approach?

I do a lot of modeling in Excel spreadsheets so being able to diff two spreadsheets alongside one another would be very helpful.

I have CVS access -

[Oorang]

I can think of a few things. I'd stay away from Visual Source safe, because it corrupts binaries like crazy (which is just terrible for a system that is supposed to be holding your master copies).

If you want to pay money, you can look at Team Foundation Server.

If you just need versioning and check in/check out, you can actually accomplish that with Windows Sharepoint Services and it's free with Windows Server. (I find this is just fine for most of what I want to accomplish with Excel Docs).

And finally, I'm hearing a lot of good things about Subversion which is free.

[ChloeRadshaw]

I can think of a few things. I'd stay away from Visual Source safe, because it corrupts binaries like crazy (which is just terrible for a system that is supposed to be holding your master copies).

If you want to pay money, you can look at Team Foundation Server.

If you just need versioning and check in/check out, you can actually accomplish that with Windows Sharepoint Services and it's free with Windows Server. (I find this is just fine for most of what I want to accomplish with Excel Docs).

And finally, I'm hearing a lot of good things about Subversion which is free.

Thanks - But using this approach does nt give us 'diffing' ability - Right?

If I compare two versions and I can see that the file size has changed that is fine.

However I want to see what the actual differences were between the two files.

[Oorang]

I know subversion has that ability. Sharepoint does not. Team foundation server I'm pretty sure does. The key phrase to google is "Diff Tool" and "Merge Tool". I've seen a lot of people just "roll their own" for "Diff Tools", merge tools, I haven't seen done anyone do it well:) . Depending on your needs for rigor, you might just share the workbook, and turn on change tracking:)

Otherwise you are probably looking at Subversion or TFS. I don't claim to be an expert with either of those products, so you would be well advised to do some research before leaping.

[Oorang]

Ran across this doing something else. Thought you might be interested: http://www.ericsink.com/scm/index.html