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Is creating forms in Word and Adobe really IT?

N2IT

Would you consider this more of a business function or an IT function?

Silly questions, but honestly I am unsure, it seems to be a bit of both.

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Comments

ciscoman2012

I would consider it more a business function, but also related to IT since it's obviously using computers.

I wouldn't go as far to classify it as real "IT" work though.

N2IT

I was afraid of that

ptilsen

No. The use of a specific productivity software for non-IT business needs is never IT. The only reason we might think of it as IT is that Adobe and Word are two extremely common suites with advanced features, and general end-users often expect IT to be aware of these. Taking this away, Word is fundamentally no different than, say, QuickBooks; IT is expected to configure and support it, but its a capacity of the department(s) or user(s) to use it.

Edit: This is not to say that deep capabilities within such programs is not useful to an IT professional. I, for one, use Excel and Word templates in my job capacity, because their use relates to my specific job. Creating a custom spreadsheet for accounting would not fall under my job, nor should it.

N2IT

The reason why I ask is that sometimes more advanced forms require coding. JavaScript for exam in Adobe or VBA in MS Word. Those are development based functions and I would consider outside the scope of a business users skill set.

PT thoughts on this?

I agree from a high level overview I would agree, but when you get into hosting webforms and utilizing coding to get a form to perform a certain way, does that cross over into IT now? As in development?

Psoasman

I suppose creating forms could be included in IT, but in a very broad sense.

I've created templates and forms for some users in my company. It's not technically part of my job, but I know how to do it and it builds rapport with users. One of our chefs was having trouble creating a menu in Word. I made one for him in Publisher and they are still using it - 3 years later.

dales

N2IT wrote: »

The reason why I ask is that sometimes more advanced forms require coding. JavaScript for exam in Adobe or VBA in MS Word. Those are development based functions and I would consider outside the scope of a business users skill set.

PT thoughts on this?

I agree from a high level overview I would agree, but when you get into hosting webforms and utilizing coding to get a form to perform a certain way, does that cross over into IT now? As in development?

Theres an easy fix for that, dont tell anyone scripting exists in those apps and they'll be none the wiser!

In previous jobs I've had often people will ask me about word and excel (pivot tables being common) I've always said I use it in the same way you guys do so I dont know either. Theres usually what the business considers a power user somewhere about the office that staff can be directed to instead of IT, or send them off down the local wh smiths with a bit of petty cash for a dummies book if their really insistant. My feeling is that I would have helped if I knew but if I didn't know the answer would they rather I kept the infrastructure going of help make their spreadies pretty?

swild

Absolutely not.

Programming is a sub sect of IT and is unrelated to the software package being used. The general JOAT IT worker is not paid for programming. They are paid to keep it all running. In fact, they probably installed word on the programmer's machine. If you have the time and an interest, then go right ahead, but make sure they know that it is not in your job description. It is a different skill set. Once you start talking about JS or VB, you gotta pay a programmer. I am not going to go learn how to do something that I'm not being paid for and have no interest in, just to teach you how to do your job. I have enough on my plate without having you ask for a new script every week. Now if I write scripts to make my own job easier, I will give you some ideas, or point out a book that helped me, or answer specific questions. If you come to me and ask me to write you a script, I'll say no. "Teach a man to fish..." and all. Fortunately, they already have their own fishing pole (computer) and know how to cast (type).

I install software and explain absolute basics like "this is a mouse, it has a button, it does stuff" or best practices like "save your files to the network drive that gets backed up, unless you have no problem recreating it from scratch when your local hard drive dies."

I may sound miffed, and I am. I roped myself into administering an access database and now something doesn't quite work right and they expect me to be able to go in and fix someone else's queried inside-outside-equi-join's queried query amid all of the dead wood of other people's attempts that were never deleted and now no one knows what is actually needed and what is excess fat. /rant

dales

The words "access" and "database" should never be put together in a sentence.

swild

dales wrote: »

The words "access" and "database" should never be put together in a sentence.

with ya.

rsutton

In many company cultures it is expected for the Help Desk guys to help with stuff like this. If your boss tells you to help so-and-so with their Word template, responding that it is not part of your job description is probably not going to help you with that promotion. The Help Desk people are probably more likely to be able to figure out Word formatting issues quicker than the normal business user, so many people would see the technician working on these problems as time well spent. Help Desk often gets asked to do things that are not traditional, or typical IT work. Going the extra mile has always worked out well for me.

N2IT

I don't answer phones or work on a help desk. My job is to assist these users with everything under the sun related to MS Suite, Adobe (lifecycle, acrobat, contribute, etc), other design type applications.

We have a help desk tier 1 and 2, then there are specialist groups that's where I fall. I usually don't get how to unfreeze a row. It's more like nested if statements pulling from a shared pivot table or settings up an X Y scatter with jumbled data pulling from a data warehouse/denormalized tables. lol

I support data analyst, scientist, statisticians, all of which know those tools backwards and forwards. I will have to admit though, my Excel skills have increased a lot just over 4.5 months.

N2IT

dales wrote: »

The words "access" and "database" should never be put together in a sentence.

It's a great tool to use when cleansing dirty data. Instead of writing formulas a mile long you can massage the data with SQL. And the newer Access has a setting to change it to ANSI 92 which gives it the same syntax and MS SQL. Besides in some environments you can rip the back end off of Access (JET) and connect to a back end like MS SQL. It's somewhat scalable and offers some nice features. I have to say that the reporting in Access is not good. **** it into Excel for reporting or charts.

A no it's not an enterprise solution, but it does have value to certain job task.

rsutton

You said your job to the users. Does your boss agree with the users? If he does, then it's your job. If he doesn't, then it's up to you if you want to do users a "favor" by helping them.

N2IT

I know it's my job I was wondering if it was considered IT or Business that's all.

Sounds like it's business support and not IT. Doesn't really phase me either way I was just curious. There is some serious grey going on in my job, so I thought I would ask the board for their opinion.

Business it is

rsutton

Like I said, many company cultures would consider that IT. We are expected to support the software that users run; the extent of that support varies from company to company.

N2IT

Fair enough........