Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

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IslandPink
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#631 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

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#632 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

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PHE's interim chief executive Michael Brodie said the "technical issue" - which concerned the process that transfers Covid-19 positive lab results into reporting dashboards - was identified overnight on 2 October.

It was caused by some Microsoft Excel data files exceeding the maximum size and issues in transfer of data between NHS Test and Trace and PHE.
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#633 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by pre65 »

Nick wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:15 pm
PHE's interim chief executive Michael Brodie said the "technical issue" - which concerned the process that transfers Covid-19 positive lab results into reporting dashboards - was identified overnight on 2 October.

It was caused by some Microsoft Excel data files exceeding the maximum size and issues in transfer of data between NHS Test and Trace and PHE.
I am speechless on so many different levels...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54423988
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#634 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by steve s »

Isnt this just a 'save as' issue.
When Lesley worked in the nhs this was a common schoolboy error
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#635 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by Nick »

No, the decision to use excel in the first place was the problem. Added to that the use of CSV as a file transfer is also suspect. Chances are given the level of incompetence that made those choices means that there are also unicode issues in there no one has noticed. Nobody in the UK has a name that includes accents for example do they? XML was invented for this sort of transfer, and databases to store data, even a nosql one would have been a better choice than excel. And of course there is GDPR and data protection involved (or should be). XLS security is trivial to bipass.

I would like to hope it was automated using macros/VBA so "save as" is not involved. But who knows, maybe someone is doing this by hand...

Not even sure that Excel's license even covers its use for this sort of medical application.
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#636 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by vinylnvalves »

Isn’t a worksheet in excel limited to 9600 lines anyway.. It’s a powerful tool when you master VBA. It is no substitute for a proper database though for the type of work the NHS are using it for a dedicated database makes more sense. Comma separated variables, or even spaces, wildcards etc do cause issues between platforms, you cannot go wrong with wide fixed format. I used to have a plastic mask that went over the monitor screen so that you could see when editing ABAQUS or Nastran decks that things were in the right columns, (channels).
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#637 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by Nick »

you cannot go wrong with wide fixed format.
You can very quickly if you use UTF-8, or you find the columns are not long enough, or you find you need extra columns.
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#638 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by ed »

reminds me of all the furore back in the day when 'users' thought themselves IT experts and JET(access) databases started appearing in enterprise environments.....it was very difficult not to criticise.....seems this sort of thing may still be happening
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#639 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by Ray P »

ed wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:58 pm .....seems this sort of thing may still be happening
I suspect most businesses will be dependent on Excel, though most wont realise it.
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#640 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by Nick »

Ray P wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:54 pm
ed wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:58 pm .....seems this sort of thing may still be happening
I suspect most businesses will be dependent on Excel, though most wont realise it.
At the front end, yep, its perfectly good for what its mean for. But data transfer is not it.
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#641 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by jack »

Ray P wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:54 pm
ed wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:58 pm .....seems this sort of thing may still be happening
I suspect most businesses will be dependent on Excel, though most wont realise it.
In the finance industry we generally have strict rules on Excel usage, mainly down the the lack of change control and auditing (lack of audit trail), particularly wrt. macros.

It's a great tool in the right place, but not as a panacea.
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#642 Re: Corona Virus Lock Down 'Rant' Thread.

Post by vinylnvalves »

Another good reason to not catch Covid ....https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54526660.
Manage to survive it, get long Covid and cannot even recuperate listening to music :(
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