Chapter 12 Information Systems 1 Managing Information n

Chapter 12 Information Systems 1

Managing Information n Information system: Software that helps us organize and analyze data. q q Flexible application software tools that allow the user to dictate and manage the organization of data, and that have basic processing capabilities to analyze the data in various ways. Two of the most popular general application information systems are electronic spreadsheets and database management systems. 2

Spreadsheets n n Spreadsheet: A software application that allows the user to organize and analyze data using a grid of labeled cells. Spreadsheet cells are referenced by their column/row designation. 3

Spreadsheets q A cell can contain literal data that is numeric or string. String type data is also referred to as text. n q Samples: 5, “Hello”, ” 5” Data stored in a cell can be formatted to change its appearance. n n n Justification Font Currency/date/etc. 4

Spreadsheets n Suppose we have collected data on the number of students that came to get help from a set of tutors over a period of several weeks. 5

Spreadsheet Formulas n The power of spreadsheets comes from the formulas that we can create and store in cells. q q When a formula is stored in a cell, the result of the formula is displayed in the cell If we’ve set up the spreadsheet appropriately, we could add or remove tutors, additional weeks of data, or change any of the data we have already stored and the corresponding calculations would automatically be updated. 6

Spreadsheet Formulas n Formulas can make use of basic arithmetic operations using the standard symbols: q q n (), ^, *, /, +, Note the Order of Operations. They can also make use of spreadsheet functions that are built into the software. 7

Spreadsheet Functions n A function consists of its name, and its argument list. q n Fname (arg 1, arg 2, …) A function will often refer to a range of cells. q A range of specified with two dots (periods) between the two cell endpoints. n A 1. . B 9 8

Spreadsheet Functions Figure 12. 4 Some common spreadsheet functions 9

Spreadsheet Example 10