Comments for Contextures Blog

Comment on Avoiding Shared Workbooks in Excel by JP

JP — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:47:58 +0000

At my office, we did the shared workbook thing a lot. It was quick and dirty, and we didn’t need the advanced features. Just a few people working remotely who needed to edit a few cells on a common workbook.
We did end up with a few corrupted workbooks, but fortunately there were nightly backups, so the data loss was minimal. But the sad part is the rationale behind it all. They didn’t want to buy more Access licenses (getting IT to do installations is a rude welcome to the bureaucracy), and paying someone to write the code that would write the information to a database (or create anything more than a rudimentary solution) was out of the question. All I got were blank stares when I suggested alternatives to shared workbooks.

Comment on Working With Dates In Excel by Charlie Hall

Charlie Hall — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:34:12 +0000

Groups are only shared when pivot tables share the same pivot cache (I believe) - if you want two pivot tables to share the same data, but not the same groupings, you can use different range names (which have the same range address) or create the pivot tables each with different number of rows, and then once they are both created, change the addresses to include the same number of rows.

Comment on Entering Dates and Times in Excel by Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:25:16 +0000

Wouldn’t it be easier to save the last saved date doing something like this:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As Boolean)
Worksheets(”DataEntry”).Range(”A1″).Value _
= “Last Saved: ” & Format(Now, “mm/dd/yyyy h:mm AM/PM”)
End Sub

Comment on Avoiding Shared Workbooks in Excel by sam

sam — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:36:45 +0000

When you want multiple users to interact with an excel file - use it in a “Database” mode.
Create a Template which can add and edit records in a database (Excel/Access etc) stored in a network folder with proper access.
Create a Reporting application which can pull data from the database.

Excel 2000 has a very interesting addin called Template wizard with Data tracking which allowed users to add data to a database from an excel template. Instead of improving it MS decided to discontiue it from XP onwords….

Comment on Working With Dates In Excel by Mariusz Cendrowski

Mariusz Cendrowski — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:12:36 +0000

Debra, thank you very much.
This is exactly what I needed.

Best regards
Mariusz

Comment on Working With Dates In Excel by Contextures Blog » Entering Dates and Times in Excel

Contextures Blog » Entering Dates and Times in Excel — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:05:45 +0000

[...] Working With Dates In Excel [...]

Comment on Delay Sending Outlook Messages by Stevo

Stevo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:41:14 +0000

Ron de Bruin

‘Stay in the outbox untill this date and time
.DeferredDeliveryTime = “1/6/2007 10:40:00 AM”

I searched for hours for this solution…..You’re the man Ron.

In future when I Google VBA queries I will first try adding your name into the search criteria with what I need. I’ve seen a lot of your replies all over the place and I greatly appreciate your help to the internet community….

Cheers

Comment on Working With Dates In Excel by Debra Dalgleish

Debra Dalgleish — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:05:23 +0000

Mariusz, you can use the FileDateTime in VBA. I’ll post an example tomorrow.

Jon, you’re right, calculations in the source data are usually less of a headache, than trying to do them in the pivot tables. And it still surprises me when I enter a formula at the top of a table in Excel 2007, and it automatically fills down.

And yes, ‘Just to thank you about’, it is difficult to write a book. The hardest part is sitting in the chair for the hundreds of hours that it takes, and staying focused. Thanks for letting me know that you liked it!

Comment on Working With Dates In Excel by Just to thank you about

Just to thank you about — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:48:03 +0000

hello;
i appreciate highly your blog and i had learned interessting things from you.
THank you very much.
I use excel every day more than 10 hours!
i love excel because he is like women : a lot of sercets and very funy!
thank you avery much again and again…
i like very much your book “Beginning PivotTables in Excel 2007″ and i recommanded because your style is so clear that your reader will undertsand your ideas very easily.

is it difficult to write a book? i plan to make a try…
your faithfully

Comment on Working With Dates In Excel by Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:55:58 +0000

Calculated fields in pivot tables is one of those features that seem like such a good idea when listed in a bullet point, but which don’t live up to their billing. So I’ve usually added a calculation column to the source data.

It used to be a real pain to add these calculations to the data. Whenever more records were added, you had to drag the formula down to include all of the rows. Then you had to update the pivot table source range.

With Excel 2003’s Lists (and their descendent, Excel 2007’s Tables), the data source adjusts automatically, and any calculations also autofill themselves.