I’m working with Wayne Eckerson (Director, TDWI Research,  The Data Warehousing Institute) on their new Best Practices Research report, "Strategies for Managing Spreadmarts and Integrating with Microsoft Office," which will be published in January 2008.

If you take the survey, you can be among the first to receive the report.

One of the biggest pain points BI professionals face is dealing with "spreadmarts" – renegade spreadsheets and desktop databases that suck up expensive analyst time and undermine data consistency and compliance efforts. The question is, how do you enable users to work in Microsoft Office applications without undermining a single version of truth? Our upcoming report will answer this question and provide several approaches for corralling renegade data shadow systems and explain technical advances for integrating with Microsoft Office applications.

To write this report, we need your help. We’d like to understand the scope and costs of spreadmarts and effective remedies. Please let us know how you are approaching spreadmarts by taking our 15-minute survey at the following Web address:

http://www.tdwi.org/info.aspx?id=42175

For completing the survey, you will be the first to receive the final report when it is published in January 2008. If you encounter difficulties, contact Wayne at   weckerson@tdwi.org.