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Excel Programming 101

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I had a quick email query from my brother-in-law at Bremer Ford. He had an Excel spreadsheet that he was having trouble understanding how they’d done it (neither of us could find any VBA code behind it, which confused us no end).

Found a spreadsheet with some arcane formula scratchings, like this:

Modify Data
=DIALOG.BOX(DBMain)
=IF(R[-1]C=FALSE,HALT())
=WORKSPACE(,,TRUE)

The answer is that this is the absolutely ancient way of doing macros in Excel, which is what I suspected. It was introduced in Excel V4, and was replaced by Excel VBA. Excel V4, for the record, was issued in 1992. The modern way to do anything remotely approaching this is VBA applications, although I would never recommend that you put actual source data in Excel – it should be in a database (even MS Access) for robustness and backup purposes, and then you would extract that data to Excel for reporting. The link below has more:

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/faqs/xl95faq1.htm

And so – problem solvered. I suppose, though, it’s testament to backward compatibility that a 14-year-old macro still works in our version of Excel. I guess, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Implementing your online collaboration strategy

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My speaker’s notes (not that they bear much resemblance to what was actually said) are to be found here as a downloadable pdf:  Implementing an online collaboration stategy.  This presentation was given at the Blogs, Wikis, and RSS conference in Sydney on August 29th 2006.

Implementing your online collaboration strategy

We work in a Web World for business outcomes

Introduction

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Micheal Axelsen, and this presentation focuses on providing a practical guide to the implementation of your online collaboration strategy, with some useful tips and thoughts on how to proceed with the implementation of collaboration technologies, including blogs and wikis, into the business.

This presentation is focussed upon:

  1. Business
  2. Collaboration technologies
  3. How to succeed with their implementation

At all times, though, this is intended to be a practical look at the application of these technologies, and addressing the practical concerns of business.

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When the system’s tail wags the organisation’s dog

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This article was written for BDO’s business briefing for Autumn 2003. The article is reflective of a common theme that we find – businesses often resort to writing software as a first resort rather than a last resort, and end up working even harder to make their business work. It’s not that I’m against homegrown software, but I do see it cause enough grief that I suggest clients have a Bex and a good lie down before developing their own software. The article is also published at http://michealaxelsen.com/blog/publications/articles/when-the-systems-tail-wags-the-organisations-dog/. Enjoy.

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IT outsourcing – selecting the ‘best’ infrastructure model

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This article was published on CEO Online a month or two ago, and I did promise I would post it here eventually.  And as I am of course absolutely certain that there is a raft of readers out there who would like to see the full article on the basis of that promise (delusionment is a wonderful thing) I am posting the article here.

In order to keep us all sane, you will need to click through to see the full article.

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Invitation to Present at Queensland CPA Congress

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I have been kindly invited by CPA Australia to present at the Queensland CPA Congress in October 2006 on the topic ‘Implementing Systems for Improved Reporting Efficiency’.  Since this has the potential to be drier than last week’s dog food, I am trying to ensure that the audience doesn’t go to sleep 5 minutes after I do through what will hopefully be an interesting presentation for most people. 

This I will do by giving a comprehensive companion guide (that has all the boring details) to attendees, and focussing the presentation on a strategic approach to information systems implementing for reporting efficiency.  This discussion will be livened up with some war stories from the field.  Most of our clients do struggle with their reporting efficiency problems and these stories will be used to illustrate some of the issues we all cope with.

The official session guideline is:

Presentation Overview:  Implementing Systems for Improved Reporting Efficiency

This presentation addresses issues in selecting and implementing information systems – including but not limited to accounting information systems – in order to ensure efficiency in business reporting. 

A strategic framework to building your information systems is provided that can be used to assess your reporting efficiency and to suggest strategies that will improve your business’ response to this important commercial issue.

The presentation will include ‘case studies from the field’ in Micheal’s experience in addressing these issues for clients.  All attendees will receive a comprehensive guide with detailed discussion on the approach to implementing systems to achieve improvements in reporting efficiency.

The presentation is set down for 25th October 2006 from 3.20pm to 4.20pm at the Sofitel Hotel in Brisbane.  Hope to see CPA members at Congress this year.