# What would you do...



## InTurn123 (Jul 13, 2006)

...if you had no work to do but you couldn't leave work?

I could use some suggestions.


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## Von Pookie (Jul 13, 2006)

Same situation here, for the most part. Sadly it's pretty much a daily occurrance for me...


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## InTurn123 (Jul 13, 2006)

Really? What do you do?



Surely you have thought of something you could do? The only thing i've thought of is drawing, which I suck at.


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## Von Pookie (Jul 13, 2006)

Well, I have some "instructions" I can (re)type up, but I've been putting that off for at least a *year,* now. Whenever I start to work on it, I just get extremely bored and my brain just kind of shuts down. So I stop.

Right now I'm poking around the online supply catalog for cheaper replacements of the things I usually order. That's killed some time this afternoon. And, if you couldn't tell, I tend to hang around here quite a bit, and check livejournal and my email and other websites consistently throughout the day...


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## InTurn123 (Jul 13, 2006)

Yea i've noticed.

i would go to other websites but i think it might look bad, this is atleast sort of work related. I think. But what do i know what qualifies as work related, i'm only an intern.


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## Von Pookie (Jul 13, 2006)

Eh, it worked out for me. I mean, I pretty much get to do what I want, time-wise. When things come up for me to do, I do them but then I'm back at square one with nothing.

I would definately say that finding this board and hanging out here hasn't been a waste of time, however. I've basically learned what I know of VBA because of it. So about 5 years ago, I knew it was possible to record macros to do simple things, but that was about it. Now I can write some macros on my own. Several months ago I even wrote a macro for my boss to automatically get info from a txt file and put it into multiple other sheets.

Doing that was fun for me. I *wanted* to work on it. Then there's that typing I mentioned earlier--complete other end of the spectrum


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## InTurn123 (Jul 13, 2006)

Yea, that's just what i've been given actually.

Enter in invoices... like 250+.


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## Von Pookie (Jul 13, 2006)

Oh, I don't mind data entry. That's fine.

Occasionally I get a little "side job" of creating forms in Word for someone at my husband's office. I *love* doing those, as it gives me something to do during work. I get printouts of the forms, then I re-create it with form fields, etc. in Word so people can just fill it out and print. I just keep track of the time I spend working on it (either here at work or at home) and poof! I get paid. Fun


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## InTurn123 (Jul 13, 2006)

Lol, and here I always thought people worked 8 hours a day 5 days a week (this is my first job ever). I always thought that's insane, how can you work like that. I guess work is really "work".


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## Smitty (Jul 13, 2006)

Why not learn VBA or .NET?  Or any other number of programs?  I learned a lot of what I did much the same way the Kristy did.

Any skill that you can pick up or lean on your own, if it can be translated into being more productive in your company is a good thing.

My 2 cents.

Smitty


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## InTurn123 (Jul 14, 2006)

Definitely agree, thanks for the idea. Though I've never heard of .net.


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## litrelord (Jul 14, 2006)

Yeah, learn VBA.  If you get good enough you’ll be able to automate everything you do and your company won’t have to employ you any more.  They will actually, they’ll keep you on the keep the macros working, just make sure you don’t get stuck where you are because you become irreplaceable. 

I taught myself VBA when I had spare time at the end of the month.  Got to the point when I had 1-1.5 weeks of work and the rest of the month with nothing to do.  Not anymore mind you.


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## NateO (Jul 14, 2006)

Smitty's right on, I'd be automating this kludge, right here:



> Enter in invoices... like 250+.


Then I'd move on to new planets!!


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## InTurn123 (Jul 14, 2006)

*lol*

Lol I can just see it now, if I did that, it could take like 1/2 of this other person's job away. I don't know about doing that. Unless I didn't tell anyone. Lol.


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## NateO (Jul 14, 2006)

*Re: lol*

Do it, they'll find something else for them to do, I'm sure.


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## gwkenny (Jul 21, 2006)

yup yup.

If not you, someone else, so why not you?

I find the hard part is actually coming up with good ideas.  If I got paid to sit around, I'd go crazy (been there, done that, still not sure I'm sane now though...)

After identifying something useful, I'd try to create it.  Start my own business.  What better way to do that than when someone else is paying for it???


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## InTurn123 (Jul 28, 2006)

*How much?*

How hard would it be to transfer invoices in SAP to an organized excel file, sort of creating a database? Sounds like a really good idea that would be beneficial for me and the company. 

I'm guessing though, that this isn't so easy.


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## Smitty (Jul 28, 2006)

Do a Google search for "SAP to Excel".  There are tons of options.

Smitty


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## gwkenny (Jul 28, 2006)

SAP should be hooked into your accounting system.  If this wasn't done, this was a major faux paux in the SAP implementation.

SAP is great for automated reports and data processing.  Unfortunately when you get down to the details of data mining, often you have to manipulate the data and SAP isn't always the easiest thing to maneuver.

Thus lots of automated query data dumps into something that's much more maneuverable:  access/excel.

This is exactly what the top consultants do when examining the operations of a company.

You might be pleasantly surprised how easy it can be to port a block of data into a text file and then get it into Excel/Access


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## InTurn123 (Aug 8, 2006)

*SAP to Excel automatically - Invoices*

So I'm thinking of suggesting this to my boss, but I don't think I can actually do it myself. I'm not sure whether or not to tell him that this can be done because if I can't do it they'll have to pay some consultant person to do it right? 

       Does the value of not having employees backed up on invoices every now and then outweigh the cost of hiring someone to get the invoices to go from SAP to Excel automatically? I'm guessing it depends on the company so it's hard to say. 

Any advice appreciated.


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## gwkenny (Aug 10, 2006)

Unfortunately I'm not too familiar with SAP.  The companies that I have worked with in the past had a full suite of modules (from manufacturing, supply chain mgmt, crm, etc...) and thus SAP and integration professionals on staff.  I just put in my data requests and got my dumps.

Sounds like you SAP implementation isn't as sophisticated (i.e. OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE!!!).

You could do it yourself, none of this is rocket science.  Though I found that most SAP IT folks are very antsy to let anyone else play with their implementation.

If you do not have any SAP staff and not allowed access to the SAP software then yes, you'd have to get an SAP consultant/integrator.  These guys aren't cheap.

As for your second paragraph...  I don't understand what you mean by "employees backed up".

Getting back to the point if you can do it yourself...  There has to be a query to return invoice data.  You just need to learn enough SAP to get that dumped into some sort of data file.  If you can get access to SAP, it shouldn't be that hard to pick up (if you already know a smattering about databases and programming).  If you aren't comfortable mucking around with software and databases, it is not something I would recommend doing on something that is live.


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## InTurn123 (Aug 10, 2006)

Hi, and thanks for posting. When I said "backed up" I just meant that having all those invoices slows down the employees who have to do them, who could be doing something other than invoices if they were automated. Since  you mentioned that SAP consultants tend to be expensive, I don't think I'll bring it up to the boss. Thanks again for the advice.


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