Documentation: Dual Purpose Documents - Functional & Design

I'm a strong believer in the value of proper documentation. I believe that each time a project is completed, I put more value into documentation.

That's not to say that each project actually uses documentation properly, efficiently, or thoroughly.

I won't delve into the entire issue here, but I wanted to post a quick Excel spreadsheet that had a simple little switch that could hide implementation design details from view.

The issue is that sometimes it's easier to wrap a config file with a little context to have a good document for business review than it is to create a separate document. Data can be duplicated if it's relative to the business summary and also the overall configuration.

For this reason, I've put a little macro function on the xls that will let someone use a drop down list to pick either "Design" or "Functional" to reveal and hide respectively specific rows in each sheet.

It's nothing special, but something I've found helpful.

Here's the file


On the Introduction tab, you'll see the following in A1 & B1:

That tab will show/hide the rows 7-10,13 on all sheets except "Introduction" & "Change Log".

Set to "Design":

Set to "Functional"