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ExSafe

By: Philip Howard
Format: InDetail
Published: May 2007

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There are three distinct types of product aimed at the spreadsheet management market: development automation tools, control and compliance tools, and auditor’s tools. The first of these are about automating the development process for spreadsheet applications but are limited to providing management capability for new spreadsheets only. On the other hand, both control and compliance, and auditor’s tools, are about managing existing as well as future spreadsheets. That said, auditor’s tools are focused almost exclusively on finding errors and don’t do anything for security or auditing and version control. That’s why they cost a few hundred dollars rather than the hundreds of thousands or more than you can spend on full control and compliance tools (which often include auditor’s tools as well). ExSafe from ROISoft is a control and compliance product.

However, not all control and compliance products have the same perspective on the market. There are some that are focused on monitoring what the user does and there are others that emphasise compliance with specific regulations, particularly Sarbanes- Oxley. ExSafe, on the other hand, comes from the point of view that the first thing that needs to be done with spreadsheets is to provide security and then you can build control and compliance on top of that, rather than the other way around. ExSafe, then, is a control and compliance tool with security at its heart.