The future of VBA

I have been preparing for the Future of VBA session that kicks off the Excel developer conference on Sat 1 Dec.

Somewhat coincidentally Dick over on DDOE has recently done a couple of posts in this very area.

http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2007/11/09/vba-for-beginners/

http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2007/11/10/the-decline-of-vba/

It’s reassuring to see there are a few people with the same concerns.

The Saturday session will look briefly at the history of VBA and its predecessor XLM and trace that through some of the very latest thinking in language design both within Microsoft and outside. That will of course involve .net, VSTO and VSTA.

It will be an open session so if you have any comments or questions bring them along and chip in.

Some of the key questions people involved with VBA have revolve around where is the language going, what are the timescales and implications so on. Whilst definitive answers to many of these questions are hard come by (I suspect some are still in discussion at Microsoft) we will attempt to give some usable guidance.

Another common question in the forums is what should I be doing now to prepare for VBAs future direction? We’ll take a look at that too, with advice for all of the difference sectors of the VBA user/developer community.

A few events I have attended recently have touched on this future of VBA hot potato, this session will be the first (public) one dedicated to this topic, that I have been involved with. I’m looking forward to hearing what other devs think is coming up, and how we might handle it.

Hope to see you there

cheers

Simon

Conference numbers

We had a query recently about the number of people coming to the conference. I thought others might be interested too.

Last year I think there were around 40-50 delegates, this year we are expecting similar, or possibly slightly less due to the shorter booking window. There is still plenty of time to book of course. And we might even be accepting registrations on the day? (I’ll need to check that one). Thursday and Friday we are running 2 simultaneous tracks, 1 conference one, and one add-on class one. (Saturday is just one track).

So the attendance was neatly summed up as:

Enough to create a lively atmosphere, but not so many that you get lost in the crowd.

I think thats a good description.

I just looked at Microsofts TechEd that happened in Barcelona last week - they had over 4,000 delegates. Thats bigger than my local town!

The Excel User conference is a much smaller scale, friendly, informal gathering of a bunch of people who want to share their knowledge and share in the knowledge of others. Plenty of that will be happening outside of the formal sessions in the breaks, and in the pub.

cheers

Simon

[And today is the last day of early bird discounts so go and book ASAP]

psst - wanna save a few quid??

Today and tomorrow are great days for booking your place at the Excel User and Developer conference.

On Wednesday the early bird discount ends and prices revert to the normal price which is about 10% more.

Get over to :

http://www.exceluserconference.com/UKEUC.html

And book your place ASAP to beat the price rise.

Still not sure you want to invest a few hundred pounds in some of the best Excel training around?

Check out the schedule and contact one of the organisers if you have any questions. My contact details are here:

http://www.codematic.net/Codematic-general/contact-us.htm (email will work best)

Cheers

Simon

Excel versions

A few people have asked about which version of Excel will be used at the conference.

There is no conference preference, each presenter will use whatever they like. For some that is likely to be 2003, for others 2007, and maybe even a bit of 2000 and/or 2002. (And a bit of Excel 5 on Saturday)

Nick is doing a couple of sessions that are specific to 2007 for which I’d be impressed if he tried to use anything but 2007.

My stuff on pivot tables and VBA etc will be 2003 as that is the version I use for client work.

Any other questions just ask

cheers

Simon

Excel VBA training

One of the great strengths of Excel compared to alternative spreadsheets is the power, simplicity and refinement of the integrated programming language VBA. Whilst the conference aims to cover as broad a range of Excel based content as possible, it would be remiss to ignore VBA. A little bit of VBA can go a long way in improving a spreadsheet, in a variety of ways.

There are several sessions at the Excel User conference focusing on VBA. The outlines for all the sessions are here.

On Thursday, Andy Pope is doing an advanced level add-on class covering Class modules.

Using classes and the associated object oriented design can often make a solution much more simple to code and maintain. This OO approach is also followed by most of the modern Visual Studio languages.

On Friday there are 2 advanced level VBA sessions in the conference, which reflects how useful VBA can be.

In the morning I’m doing a session on good design in VBA, this will touch on classes, but focus more on general areas that apply whatever design is used.

In the afternoon Charles Williams is doing a session of writing efficient user defined functions in VBA. Its common to be able to swap fairly ugly worksheet formulas for simple elegant VBA functions. Charles will be showing how to do that without affecting performance.

Also on Friday afternoon Bob Phillips is running an intermediate add-on class covering some of the VBA tips and tricks he has picked up over the years. This is an excellent opportunity if you are just finding your feet in VBA to really boost your knowledge, and learn some tried and tested ways to to get things done.

There is also plenty to learn at the conference if you have no interest in VBA of course.

cheers

Simon

[And if you are staying for the Excel Developer conference on the Saturday we will be looking at what the future might hold for the VBA language and our solutions based on it. Well worth attending.]

More conference Goodies

Patrick O’Beirne has generously offered a copy of his popular spreadsheet quality book:

Spreadsheet check and control (note the 5 star rating on Amazon - this is well worth a read)

as a prize for a conference draw. I guess he’ll do the draw during his session on Thursday the 29th November?

His presentation will help you learn where to look when searching out those tricky errors, winning the book will enable you read up on all the stuff he won’t have time for in his session.

You can see my review at Amazon, but in summary I think this book should be required reading for anyone working with spreadsheets.

cheers

Simon

Excel Pivot table training

The opening conference session will be an intermediate session on getting the most from pivot tables that I am presenting.

I’m a big pivot table fan and use them in pretty much every system I build for clients. On smurfonspreadsheets a while ago we discussed everyones favourite Excel feature, most people said pivot tables. And yet many people who could benefit in so many ways from using them avoid them. This opening session aims to make them more accessible for everyone.

The session will look at some of the reasons I like pivot tables, and some of the features I have found most useful over the years.

When and why to use pivot tables, and when not to
Pivot tables are superb in a great many situations, but every now and then you come up a case where the pivot way may not work well.

Preparing source data to be pivoted
I’m convinced one of the barriers would-be pivoters come up against is having source data in a less than ideal format. This section will discuss the issues and solutions. We’ll also look at grabbing external data, as that can be a massive win when planning reporting and analysis applications.

Professional pivot based reporting
Basic pivot tables can be just wide of what is needed for quite a few reasons, this section looks at common modifications that make them more likely to be acceptable to business customers.

Fine tuning presentation and analysis with calculations
The black art of getting pivot table calculations to actually calculate what you want, correctly, in all cases.

Charting pivot data
Pivot tables can be a pain to chart nicely, this section looks at some approaches to make that easier.

Introduction to Pivot Table VBA
Like so much in Excel a little VBA magic can go a long way with pivot tables. Guru coding skillz are not needed to boost the usability of your pivots.

The session will be an interactive one, with shout-out questions welcome, and time for more discussion at the end. It will be practical, Excel based with minimal PowerPoint. All sample workbooks and VBA utilities will be freely available to delegates.

If there is something you need to know about pivot tables in Excel that is not covered in the above agenda, drop me a line via the contact info and I’ll be sure to cover it.

Cheers

Simon

Excel conference special deal on FastExcel

FastExcel is an extremely highly regarded Excel add-in that is used by many professional Excel developers. And some very well known organisations are long time customers (Codematic doesn’t seem to be mentioned on the site, although we are happy customers too).

It allows them to focus quickly on proven ways to speed up workbook calculation times. And also to improve other performance criteria.

Normally its available for sale from www.decisionmodels.com for around £44.

As a conference special Charles Williams will be providing a free licence for everyone who attends his Optimising Calculation Speed Add-on class on Friday 30th November.

What an ideal combination - a class to give you the knowledge on how to get the best performance from your workbooks and the specialist commercial tools to take away to help implement that knowledge.

Places on the add-on classes are extremely limited and filling up quickly so don’t hang around. bookings here

If you are coming for Charles’ Friday class be sure and check out the other sessions on Thursday and Saturday.

cheers

Simon

Only 4 weeks left

For those of you keen to get your fix of in depth Excel training and advice, try to contain yourselves. There is only 4 weeks to go until the Excel User Conference in Cambridge. 3 days of highy focused, real world advice and training from some of the top Excel users and developers in the country. 3 days and 4 evenings of great networking opportunities. 3 days to take your Excel knowledge to the next level. 3 days to boost your productivity beyond recognition.

All the presenters will be participating in the evening activities, so even if you are too shy to ask your questions during the session, you could always ask them in the pub.

If you would like some advice in choosing the path that best suits your experience and objectives then please get in touch.

Cheers

Simon

Welcome to the UK Excel User Conference blog

Title says it all really.

The conference is coming up in a few weeks and we’ll use this blog to keep everyone up to date with any changes and developments.

Its shaping up to be a great event with some excellent speakers presenting extremely useful content.

And don’t forget the chance to socialise and network with fellow Excel users and some of the most prolific newsgroup and forum contributors in the country.

At the very first event in Dallas Forth Worth, one delegate had travelled all the way from Australia to get an answer to one specific question (something about copying button faces as I remember). Anyway he got his answer, in fact I think he got 2 or 3 usable answers, and some source code.

Be sure to bring any questions that are bugging you to the Cambridge event, and you can expect the same great help.

We hope to see you there.

Cheers

Simon