What can you really do with VBA? I am thinking of paying for a course any recommendations?

[ambepat]

Hi All,

I am really thinking of upgrading my excel skills and learning VBA. But my dilemma is after reading lots of comments, I don't really see the point. What can you really do with it and what advantages will it give me at work given I deal with lots of data. Can I create a software program from it.

Lastly, if I decide to really do it, I am interested in paying for a course. I don't want to buy CD's or DVD's or books. I prefer learning off someone like classroom learning. I will really appreciate if some people could recommend me anyone.

Thanks,

P

 

[Domski]

I'm an MI Analyst and a lot of my work is producing various reports for different people from large data sets. Pre VBA this would involve running the reports and then manually manipulating adding formula and then setting up each output as required. For one particular data set this took me 2-3 days. It now takes about 15 minutes after I've automated it with VBA. That's the point for me.

You'll get the basics from a 2 day classroom based course with a local training provider which should enable you to start writing fairly basic VBA depending on previous programming experience and then it varies. It took me quite a long time to progress but I wasn't particularly focussed, had no training and learnt it all from here. You might be different and pick it up a lot quicker.

Dom

 

[ambepat]

I'm an MI Analyst and a lot of my work is producing various reports for different people from large data sets. Pre VBA this would involve running the reports and then manually manipulating adding formula and then setting up each output as required. For one particular data set this took me 2-3 days. It now takes about 15 minutes after I've automated it with VBA. That's the point for me.

You'll get the basics from a 2 day classroom based course with a local training provider which should enable you to start writing fairly basic VBA depending on previous programming experience and then it varies. It took me quite a long time to progress but I wasn't particularly focussed, had no training and learnt it all from here. You might be different and pick it up a lot quicker.

Dom

Ok Dom. Thanks for your reply. I get the automation bit. What I don't get is can you develop a software application program using VBA or is it only good for automation?

 

[Smitty]

You can develop customized applications using VBA, but the thing to think about there is if you need to harness Excel's power/native capabilities. If so, then VBA is perfect. A lot of people have created .NET applications that mimic Excel's functionality, but that kind of defeats the purpose, although you can use VSTO to harness some of that via .NET.

If you're in a data driven environment that relies heavily on Excel, then VBA is definitely worth learning.

 

[RoryA]

What I don't get is can you develop a software application program using VBA or is it only good for automation?

You need a host application - typically part of the Office suite, though there are a few other applications that support VBA. If you need to build standalone applications, VBA is not enough. However, if you do a lot of work with Office applications, it's worth learning, even if you do so in addition to learning another language to build executables.

 

[ambepat]

You can develop customized applications using VBA, but the thing to think about there is if you need to harness Excel's power/native capabilities. If so, then VBA is perfect. A lot of people have created .NET applications that mimic Excel's functionality, but that kind of defeats the purpose, although you can use VSTO to harness some of that via .NET.

If you're in a data driven environment that relies heavily on Excel, then VBA is definitely worth learning.

Thanks Smitty. I prefer to learn things quickly and they say to learn it quickly find someone who already knows it. I don't really want to buy a book to learn VBA. Any recommendations you could lead me that I can pay to learn from. It is really difficult to find material in VBA that is easy to learn and you can understand. It quite tricky. I prefer to learn off someone.

 

[ambepat]

You need a host application - typically part of the Office suite, though there are a few other applications that support VBA. If you need to build standalone applications, VBA is not enough. However, if you do a lot of work with Office applications, it's worth learning, even if you do so in addition to learning another language to build executables.

Hi Rory, thanks for the reply. Same question, any recommendation from someone I could pay to learn from?

 

[Smitty]

Any recommendations you could lead me that I can pay to learn from.

You can reach out to consult @ mrexcel.com for customized one-on-one training.

 

[RoryA]

Where do you live?

 

[Macropod]

VBA can also be used to process data sets that are way too large to manage on a worksheet. Some years ago, when Excel worksheets were limited to 64K rows, I developed a VBA tool to analyse a data set containing 12 million records spanning 150 data files. Even the smallest file had more records than could fit on a single worksheet. Notwithstanding that Excel can now handle 1M records on a single sheet, I'd still do it the same way as its still faster that way.