Excel XP random deletion of cells

[djbeenie]

Hello, we have about 4 users at our company. They chart out all their expences on certain dates. They update this everyday. They save their work everyday, File save. They even save it in 2 places. Their Desktop, and My documents as back up. So when they go back in the next day, RANDOM stuff is deleted. I'm no guru on MS Excel. Can anyone think of why their cells are being deleted? I think it's user error, but is their something, they are doing, something I can point out?

Regards,
Bryan

dj beenie

http://www.eternal-rhythms.com

 

[djbeenie]

I also have tried reinstalling office, updated all security patches. Doesn't make sense.

Regards,
Bryan

dj beenie

http://www.eternal-rhythms.com

 

[djbeenie]

Can anyone help me?

dj beenie

http://www.eternal-rhythms.com

 

[Corgano]

Is the stuff deleted in different cells everytime or specific cells?

Is it all of one format (date, currency, etc) or different formats?

Things I can think of:

A macro is running that is wiping some cells.

Format problems: In one of my spreadsheets if you put a number into a cell formatted as "Date" with a 90 degree alignment it shows up blank. The data is still there you just see nothing. Check the cells formats and make sure what's being typed in there agree with the format. Also check that when the workbook is closed and reopened the format didn't change.

*shrug* This is not a typical problem, I highly doubt it's a software problem. It's either one of the above or user error.

 

[Corgano]

Oh, also...

What an end-user describes as "random" and an actual random event are usually very different things.

If all else fails, you should just tell the user you need to see on "their end" what's going wrong and just watch them do their data entry and save.

If it's user error, you'll see it right away *or* the vanishing cells will simply "stop" the time you watch the process.

"That's so odd!" they will say.

In that case just blaim "funky computer problems."

And finally, many end-users don't reboot for weeks at a time, make sure they reboot. ("95% of all "odd" problems in Windows can be solved by a reboot" -Words to live by.)