Critical Thinking? How about just Thinking?

It seems to me that auditing as a profession is not full of critical thinkers, much less thinkers.

If you read my last post about auditor judgment, I’m struggling with some of the junior auditors that I’m working with.

But I’m also struggling with quite a few of the senior auditors that I work with, those that are my peers (which means they peer at what I’m doing and how I’m doing it and then continue on their merry paths).

I came to this opinion based on most of the auditors I’ve met through the years across many companies, small and big, and across sectors, including public service. And also by the many articles calling for the profession to do more critical thinking, and yes, it is needed. 

But let’s start with plain old thinking (walk before run).

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10+ Signs Mgmt Doesn’t Really Support Analytics

Your management says it wants more analytics, but does it really support analytics? Here’s 10+ signs that indicate that your mgmt:

• Does NOT knows what it takes to get analytics off the ground
• Believes that analytics multiply like rabbits, naturally
• Is NOT willing to make the adjustments required to deliver and sustain real value.

Transform Data Fast with Excel Flash Fill

You can easily use Excel’s Flash Fill tool to transform data fast, without formulas.

Did you catch that? Without formulas!

Flash Fill has been around a few years, but few people, including auditors, seem to be aware of it.

This tool is so easy to use, you could learn it AND teach it to your mom in 4 minutes. Really.

ACL Error: Not all Fields Imported via Script

Recently, I  ran an import script to import a delimited file into ACL, but the last 10 fields were not imported. And I didn’t know it right away, because I received no error message.

In addition (or should I say, in subtraction), the log did not indicate anything was wrong.

ACL: How to Add a Conditional Computed Field

In ACL, a conditional computed field (CCF), is basically a regular computed field with some fireworks.

It looks and acts much like a regular computed field, but has some extra parts that do some extra work. Fortunately, the extras are NOT complicated, and after reading this post, you will find that will you use CCFs frequently.

So what’s the difference?

How to Audit User Access

When checking system access, make sure you look at all the different items that affect the user’s access. For example, the user might need one or more of the following:

• Application ID
• Application role or group
• Membership in an local server group, Active Directory (AD) group, or UNIX Group
• Access to the application’s share and/or folder on the server
• Database ID
• Database role, including access permissions (read/write)
• Other permission (from a home-grown application code or enterprise identify management system)

ACL tip: Quickly View/Print Table Layout

To quickly view or print the table layout in ACL, type dis in the ACL command line (dis is short for display).

The table layout contains information about the fields in a table, such as field names, field type (ASCII, Date, Numeric), field length, and most importantly, the expressions used to create computed fields. For more info on computed fields, see What is a Computed Field?

ACL tip: What is a Computed Field?

A computed field is a field in an ACL table that you create using expressions.

An ACL expression is similar to a Microsoft Excel formula [e.g., =SUM(A1:A2)] in that it contains at least one function [like SUM]. Excel formulas operate on cells (like A1 and A2), but computed fields operate on fields.

Convert Report Headings into List

Occasionally you might need to convert the headings from an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (which are horizontal) into a list (which is vertical) so you can email it to someone or include the list in documentation.

You don’t need to retype the list or even cut and paste each heading, cell by cell. My method takes a few steps, but I think it’s a lot faster and certainly more accurate. It also works with other applications than Excel. (You can also use the same method to copy a horizontal row of cell values into a vertical row (convert a row into a column), but more on that later.)

Update: Actually, I found a MUCH easier way to do it–convert rows into columns and vice versa. See these simple instructions at http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/12366/convert-a-row-to-a-column-in-excel-the-easy-way/