Custom spreadsheet solutions which survive long after the developer has "left the scene", are often those which users accept because they discover it _ among other benefits _ makes their work quicker and easier to do. That is why the best person to develop such solutions tend to be one who works in that area, and is therefore familiar with the way the manual system operates. S/he would have an "insider's" perspective of the best way to introduce automation other users will readily adopt _ even as it solves the identified problem(s).
Get Maximum Returns On Your Investment In Spreadsheet Automation By Developing "In House" Expertise. Organisations can deliberately expose their employees to learning events(or self_help tutorials) on spreadsheet solutions development. Such employees can then be challenged to develop in_house solutions that effectively address the business' peculiar data analysis/report_generation needs as they arise.
In addition, visualise it having dynamic query/report drop menu interfaces, and a variety of custom buttons: for navigation(within and between worksheets), printing, data export (as PDF documents or spreadsheet files), saving, auto_data filtering, auto_charts plotting, auto_backup of files, user login authentication (for documents with sensitive or confidential content) etc.
A DIFFERENT Type Of Automation. The approach to spreadsheet automation that I refer to, is one that seeks to provide functional spreadsheet automation alternatives for ANY spreadsheet user task(s). Typically, solutions like this would require the developer to study existing manual data recording, analysis and report generation systems, then plan _ in consultation with users _ for incorporation of automation into the spreadsheet to replace them, where possible.