Whats the advantages of a database versus my paper system or an Excel spreadsheet?
For medium and large operations, it’s difficult to manage everything in Excel. With Lodgepole: 1) You are organized: you have one place to enter data, versus several spreadsheets. 2) You can easily do queries: at the click of a button, pull out a list of all the work that needs to be done on several buildings for the year 2012, rather than manually compiling information from several spreadsheets. 3) You can save time: you only need to change the name of a building in one field, vs. all spreadsheets. 4) Your data is connected together: a photo can be shown with the information about a waterline. By leveraging the capabilities of a relational database, Lodgepole is much more powerful. However, if you have a small operation, juggling a handful of spreadsheets becomes more manageable, and we often recommend that you use a spreadsheet system, rather than Lodgepole.