I kinda let this thread percolate on its own for the last couple weeks and now I see we've attracted a little more attention.
I've already received a couple of pdfs from appraisers who have built the URAR in Excel and I've handed out a couple sets of the non-Fannie forms I've built on Excel. I will say that the examples I've already seen are a lot more sophisticated and have more features than the crude versions I've already built.
For reference, I approached my version as a stand alone Excel application, without incorporating Word or Access, because (for one thing) I hate Word, and I wanted to keep the application really simple and straightforward. And believe me, my version is simple and straightforward; i.e., crude. At this point it acts just like an inexpensive word processor with some internal math functions that you would find on any low-dollar appraisalware package. I haven't enabled the import or built statistical analysis or merging data with commentary.
Now that there are a few more people who have some interest in it, I'd like to get an idea of the degree of sophistication you guys would be interested in dealing with on a forms engine. You have to realize that there's a big difference between an Excel form that's set up to act mostly like a word processor (with limitations) with simple math functions in the grids and such vs. one that's set up to take advantage of the import, statistical analyses, graphing and database functions. The more features that are involved, the greater the skill level necessary to operate it, and more importantly, to tweak it on a per-assignment basis.
Using some of Excel's capabilities involve being able to write macros and doing some programming. Those people who already know how to do that will say its a simple thing, but for most of us it is a huge learning curve that most users won't be able to manage. That's why it makes more sense for most of us to buy appraisalware packages off of the professionals.
For that reason, I would tend to advocate taking a simple approach for the masses for an open source application. That will enable more casual users to use it and make it easier for them to develop their own custom form variations later on down the line.
Then the all-star programmers can take it from there for their own usage and swap between themselves if they have an interest in that. From what I'm hearing, these guys are a lot more specific about the types of analyses and features they want to use in their reports. It is these optional features and all the possibilities that make things more complicated for the casual users. Then too, most appraisers don't use but a fraction of the productivity features that are built into the professional appraisalware applications.
Feedback?
- it's tough to do it easily.