The Excel Trap

For years, Microsoft Excel has been utilised for contaminated land work for a wide range of tasks, including sample registers, data capture, borelogs, and even creating maps. Excel is now widely accepted as the default tool for managing data. It’s familiar, flexible, and… totally overwhelmed.

As data volumes grow, project scopes expand, and regulatory scrutiny tightens, Excel has become more of a bottleneck than a solution.

Here’s why leading consultants are finally stepping away from spreadsheets — and what they’re using instead.

Excel Wasn’t Built for Environmental Data

Excel lacks robust version control features, making it difficult to track changes and revert to previous versions. Excel is not a relational database and lacks the ability to establish relationships between different datasets, making it difficult to perform complex queries and analysis. Excel, despite being 40 years old, has stood the test of time. It was created to organize data into columns and rows and manipulate it through formulas, finding countless uses. However, as datasets grow, using Excel simply because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Field data from contaminated sites is complex; it's spatial, temporal, and often subject to strict QA/QC requirements. Excel's error handling is not as robust as combining database systems rule based logic, making it difficult to detect and correct errors. Furthermore, it lacks the data integrity controls of database management systems, meaning data can be easily changed, deleted, or duplicated by mistake. Excel also lacks robust version control features, making it difficult to track changes and revert to previous versions.

Most importantly, many tasks that could be automated in a database system, such as reporting and data validation, require manual effort in Excel.

In short Excel:

• Struggles with scalability and data volumes for large datasets;
• Lacks robust data integrity and security;
• Lacks structured version control;
• Adds unnecessary manual processing, like copy-pasting and data interpretation for reports.

It’s not that Excel isn’t a useful tool — it’s just not designed for environmental workflows.

You’re Duplicating Work (And Increasing Risk)

There are many touch points when handling data in Excel, from field collection to report deliverables, linking with third party systems for logging purposes, data manipulation for exceedance tables and then summary tables. Each copy-paste step is a chance for error, and a huge waste of time.

There’s a Better Way: Connected Tools Like Datanest

Datanest was built for field professionals, not spreadsheet wizards. With modules like Gather, Maps, Hub, and Evalu8, it supports the entire contaminated land workflow.

Gather replaces the use of spreadsheets or individual notes in the field for data collection, with a custom digital solution. This provides data validation, version control, and ensures that all data is centralized in one location.

Datanest Maps' intuitive interface, linked to real-time data, completely bypasses the time-consuming process of creating maps using Microsft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Hub offers a version controlled system that interconnects data between modules and apps, thereby eliminating the need for multi tabbed spreadsheets and ensuring there is one version of the truth.

Creating exceedance tables using a master Excel program and pasting in data is vulnerable to errors. Not only can Datanest Evalu8 handle large volumes of data effortlessly, it also links to automated document outputs, maps, and reports.

Datanest is a dedicated Environmental Database Management System that and provides robust data management capabilities, data integrity, security and scalability.

You don’t just “move away from Excel” — you replace it with a purpose-built system.

It's Not Just About Speed — It’s About Compliance

Excel doesn’t track who changed what, when, or why. That’s a problem when you're dealing with auditors, clients, or regulators.

With Datanest, every collected data point is traceable, validated, and backed by a clean audit trail — meaning less time defending your data, and more time delivering outcomes.

Getting Started Is Easier Than You Think

You don’t have to overhaul everything in one go. Many of our users start with just one aspect of their workflow — then scale up as they see the time savings.

Ready to see what life looks like beyond Excel?

Book a demo

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