Facility Services built Excel with a login screen

“It's on a weird port.”— Tobias, Facility Services

Reason:

Allegedly because the deletion process requires a ticket, a manager and 3 approvals. Renamed twice to avoid attention.

Built by:

Tobias, a warehouse supervisor

Build time:

an afternoon, mostly

Built with:

Excel macros, exposed over HTTP

Database:

an Access database called Stock_list.xlsm with 8 linked tables

Authentication:

the shared account belongs to Tobias, who left 3 months ago

Deployment:

deployed from a Git commit nobody has pushed

Responsible:

Thomas, until somebody notices

Documentation:

Kevin's memory

Security situation:

the service account is also a real employee

Future disaster:

It will cause Security to ask "what application?".

Age: 4.7 years · originally expected to last 3 months · 6 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 210 days ago

Rated legendary mostly because: 861 users, 6 departments depend on it, 3 accidental connections.