Asking a spreadsheet questions in plain language
Finance needed answers to capital-appropriation questions — remaining budget, spend, ownership — without opening an Excel file and scrolling. Capital Planner answers them in plain language, grounded in the authoritative CAR data.
The opportunity
A Finance question like “how much is left on this Capital Appropriation Request?” meant opening a spreadsheet and scrolling. Multiply that across balance, spend, and ownership lookups all day, and the manual friction adds up.
What AISE built
Capital Planner, built by Tim Maka, answers those questions in plain language — remaining budget, total spend, who owns a CAR, asset detail — grounded in a single SharePoint-hosted Excel file so answers match the system of record. A DEV proof-of-concept re-architects the data into three structured Dataverse tables queried through the Microsoft Dataverse MCP Server, validating accuracy and performance before any promotion.
The benefit to the business
A whole team’s worth of everyday spreadsheet lookups becomes a plain-language question with a grounded answer — and the Dataverse rearchitecture hardens the data layer for scale without disrupting the live tool. It’s in Production, serving Finance.