# Top 10 Excel applications



## francescoG (Sep 6, 2006)

I'm researching the Top 10 business applications deployed using Excel/VBA across all industries. If you have a moment, please submit your Top 10 based on your own personal programming experience.

Regards,

Francesco


----------



## Domski (Sep 6, 2006)

I'd put amployee time sheets near the top. Almost everywhere I've worked has used Excel for time recording.


----------



## Oaktree (Sep 6, 2006)

A couple of ideas off the top of my head:

ad-hoc/customized reporting
financial forecasting
trend analysis
charts
survey deployment/results aggregation
matching/merging data sets (that are small enough where you don't need Access or SAS)


----------



## Cbrine (Sep 6, 2006)

Here's a few thing I use VBA for.

HR process automation
Hourly Merit
Salaried Merit
Quarterly Bonus
Bench Tracking

HTH
Cal


----------



## Greg Truby (Sep 6, 2006)

If you're really, really sweet to Miss Tracy (aka _starl_) in a PM she might give you some feedback on the most frequently-appearing kinds of projects Mr. Excel's consulting gurus get called in for.  I would think that Tracy would have one of the best views of anyone anywhere as far as where Excel gets applied.


----------



## starl (Sep 6, 2006)

aw, Greg, how sweet.
but to tell you the truth - I'm seeing a lot listed here.... can't think of anything new to add


----------



## Greg Truby (Sep 6, 2006)

Kind of a different interpretation of your question -- it's not really an "application" per se.  But I would have to say that Excel's most common _usage_ is as a "generic list exchange" application.  You can take any old list of whatevers -- part numbers, model numbers, invoice numbers, PO numbers, Airwaybill numbers -- and e-mail to vendors, customers, whomever and they can open it and use it; i.e. dump it into their system and/or run a query of some type -- Qty On-Hand, List Prices, Invoices Open, PO ETA's, Tracking Info; and then return it to you with the data you were needed appended to it. That's probably how most of my co-workers use Excel.  Only folks that get beyond the novice stage use it to "develop an application" or to crank meaningful analyses.<hr />

Hiya, Miss Tracy!


----------



## erik.van.geit (Sep 6, 2006)

producing + storing, invoices
comparing telephonerates (50 calls to here, 20 to there, 3 minutes each, afternoon)
stockmanagement


----------



## starl (Sep 6, 2006)

I've had clients show up with letters in Excel.. certain areas linked to ranges..
we end up moving those to Word tho.


----------



## Greg Truby (Sep 6, 2006)

> I've had clients show up with letters in Excel...
> -starl



 Were they preparing their financials using tables in Word? 

<hr />

Back to the topic at hand (so as not to worry Erik ) -- I'm starting to play with its XML stuff a bit.  While not a mainstream usage of it today, I would think that in the future that might be an area where Excel will get used more.


----------



## hatman (Sep 7, 2006)

I have built (and have seen) a lot of engineering design applications in Excel.
Link the results to inventory, price list and labor rates, voila, you also have sales quotes.


----------



## WillR (Sep 7, 2006)

As well as the other stuff listed here

I used Excel as a database to chart my daughter's milk intake when she was born up until she was weaned - it was a cool little application and what made it so beautiful was that it was soooo totally unnecessary   

But it gave me something to do whilst sterilising the bottles


----------



## riaz (Oct 4, 2006)

> Quote:
> I've had clients show up with letters in Excel...
> -starl
> 
> ...


Not as funny as it might seem at first glance.  We create financials in excel, because we are obliged to use a pre-set template by law.  We import a trial balance, link it to the financials, and run a routine to hide all lines that have no numbers in them.

One step further from there was to put all the notes accompanying the accounts into excel, using the same routine to hide all the notes with no numbers.

Super users may scoff, but the amount of time this novice has saved is unbelievable.  Error checking built in means no balance sheet shall leave our hearth unbalanced (unlike my mind, but thats another story).

[By the way, the trick to auto row height merged cells was learnt at the knees of this forum.  If you teach it, we'll use it.  Once again, thanks for all your help.]


----------



## starl (Oct 4, 2006)

trick to auto row height merged cells??


----------



## Todd Bardoni (Oct 4, 2006)

I use Excel for on-the-fly pricing.  We sell to the government and solicitations come across daily that we need to quickly price, based on last selling price.  The application downloads sales hitory from the web, analyzes pricing, stores the data in a database, etc, etc.  It's really cool and I have a lot of fun just using it (and yes, it is my own creation.)

And, I can tell you this...since implementing this application, sales have gone up.  Manually, solicitations can take a good chunk of time to process and calculate, but this app does it in seconds.  Oh, and once it does its analysis, it emails the quote to the supplier!  How cool is that!


----------



## RichardS (Oct 4, 2006)

Some areas I use Excel. Extract data from one system and manipulate and format to import to another, psuedo interface. I also built an asset register, and a billing system. Probably key area though is financial data analysis. The ability to summarise large amounts of data, then drill down to the detail where needed (Pivot Tables) is great.

My 2 cents

Richard


----------



## riaz (Oct 6, 2006)

Hi Starl


> trick to auto row height merged cells??


Measure the width of your merged cells. To the right of your printing area, create a single column with a width equal to your merged cells put together.  This column has the formula =A1 or wherever your merged data resides.  This gives you a single wide column that looks (but does not print) like your merged cells.  Because this is a single column, auto row height will work, forcing the merged cells to change height.

I don't know what topic I found this under, but for sure it was on this board.

Regards


----------



## Oaktree (Oct 6, 2006)

> I don't know what topic I found this under, but for sure it was on this board.



I believe that was Aaron Blood's contribution here:

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=31697


----------



## HalfAce (Oct 6, 2006)

What we use it for here is... pretty much _everything_.
It's used for keeping track & reporting all consumption & production for our community's electric company, (3 power plants, an office building, sub station & vehicle maintenance facility) along with timesheets, PO requisitions (that auto email as well) outage reports, government & agency reporting, power plant and equipment operation procedures & manuals, maintenance manuals, (even for our SCADA automation equipment operational procedures/instructions) and so many other things I can't even think of them all. (And yes, I use it for writing letters too!)  

I have had the pleasure of creating/maintaining every single one of our applications. (And no, this is not my job. I actually run the power plants. Doing things in excel is just what I enjoy doing and once management found this out, suddenly everything they do needs to be done (or re-done) in excel. - Go figure!   )
But that's cool. They pretty much leave me alone and I get to do what I want, including hang out here as much as I want for the most part. (They _do_ recognize how they've benefited from what I've learned here over the years.)


----------



## SydneyGeek (Oct 8, 2006)

For one client I built a system that cleans and reformats a nightly dump from a database, then uses that data as a remote source for about 30 pivot tables that they use for tracking sales across their real estate portfolio. 

First one into the system each day runs the update / reformat, everyone else just refreshes their pivot tables. The remote source is for security. If the file leaves the network, the next refresh blanks all the pivot tables. 

Also been having some fun building reporting dashboards. When someone sees all that information in one place they can't believe it. Keeps me fed...  

Denis


----------



## shades (Oct 9, 2006)

I have followed the approach of Charley Kyd (www.exceluser.com), given in his teleconference seminar. Excellent resource for practical application.


----------



## riaz (Oct 11, 2006)

> I believe that was Aaron Blood's contribution here:
> 
> http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=31697


Wow, phenomenal memory, Oaktree (or a super filing system).  Thank you for your help in giving credit where its due.

Rgds


----------

