Decision Support System

Throughout this course we have been working with Microsoft Excel which is a very popular decision support system.

First off, Excel has a model management component that allows users many different models to assess or represent situation. The user must choose a model for optimization, goal-seeking, statistical, or what-if scenarios. Specifically, Excel offers ways to create budgets for income and savings, profit and loss, or an inventory report. There are many more models available and it is as simple as starting Excel and opening a new document for home budgeting or whatever you need. Excel can easily preform mathematical procedures and produce comprehensible graphs.

Once you have selected the appropriate model for your scenario you will need to incorporate the necessary data. This is achieved through the data management component. This component acts as a database for all your relevant information. There are three types of information that you can use to achieve your desired result; organizational data, external data, and personal data. For your work in Excel, you would need to physically pull-in or add this data into your database. Once it's there, you can use it in other models. So for you home budget and savings, you would want to pull-in your information from your bank account and your monthly income, add in your personal expenses, and incorporate savings rates from banks and other institutions.

Excel's user interface is very user friendly and you can arrive at your solutions with relative ease. This is what the third component is all about. The user interface management component. This component allows you to communicate with Excel. Excel has a simple layout that easily allows you to perform complex actions and commands. It has a similar layout as other Microsoft applications, which offers you a certain familiarity with its functions and options. Also if you are uncertain of what an icon or a commands function is, a helpful popup gives you a brief description of the operation.