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Home > Newsletter
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Published Now and Again
for Business Users of Microsoft Excel.
Welcome to the First Issue!
Charley Kyd
Tuesday, May 5, 2005
This is the first issue of the Excel for Business newsletter.
You're receiving this newsletter because you subscribed at ExcelUser.com, or
because you requested some information from the site, or because I found your
business card in my sock drawer, or whatever. If you haven't actually subscribed, please do
so now at:
http://exceluser.com/biz/efb.htm.
In the unlikely event that you really, really don't want to subscribe, do
nothing. I'll send you another copy or two and then drop you from my list.
Now, let's talk about using Excel for business...
Problems With VBA
You'll find no original material about VBA at ExcelUser. Here's why...
As a consultant, I've seen many horrible VBA programs written by bean counters,
marketeers, and other knowledge workers in love with VBA.
I've seen these people spend hours to write a program that would save them
minutes a month.
I've seen people use programs they don't understand, written by employees who no
longer work there, to generate results they're not sure of, for managers who
make important decisions based on that information. (Explain that business practice to the Sarbanes-Oxley
police.)
I've seen good bean counters fall in love with VBA, and then change careers to
become bad VBA programmers.
So I decided not to encourage such behavior at ExcelUser.
But I was wrong. I finally realized that the problem won't go away if I merely
ignore it.
So I'll slowly start to introduce VBA topics at ExcelUser. I've
even begun to work on a new book about VBA for people in business. It will
explain practical ways to use the power that VBA offers and to avoid many
problems that VBA brings. If you have any suggestions for the book, please
send
me your ideas.
As the book develops, I'll start to post excerpts and other VBA stuff at ExcelUser.
Array Formulas
I've just finished a rather long article explaining how to create array formulas
in Excel. If you haven't used array formulas very much, you're missing a lot of
power. You'll find the article at:
http://www.exceluser.com/solutions/arrays1.htm
I've already posted the article. But I haven't completed the
plumbing that connects it to the rest of the site. I plan to do that over the
next several days. But you can read it now by following the link.
S H A M E L E S S P L U G
Do you need help with Excel reporting, analysis, budgeting, or
forecasting? Are you looking for ways to get more value from your
Excel-friendly OLAP program? Are you fighting Spreadsheet Hell, or
suffering from too
many errors in your reports and analysis? Then you've found the help
you need.
Email Charley Kyd for rates and
availability.
3rd Party Products?
One of the strengths of Excel is that many 3rd-party products are available to
enhance it in many different ways. I plan to discuss such products in the
months ahead.
If you can recommend any 3rd-party products that other Excel users should know
about, please send me information
about them.
Corporate Dashboard Updates
For months I've offered free dashboards that display the performance of public
companies traded in the US. More than 100 companies are available now. You can
see the links to them at:
http://www.exceluser.com/dash/corpdash.htm
Several weeks ago I updated the entire list with new data.
By the way, you can get the actual Excel dashboard workbook I used to create
these pages, along with data for
several companies. You can learn the details at:
http://www.exceluser.com/catalog/landdash1.htm
From the Archives
If your company is like most, you don't document as many of your key Excel
applications as you should. If you decide that it's finally time to invest in some documentation,
you might take a look at this article:
http://www.exceluser.com/solutions/copypic.htm
It explains how to create images of your Excel worksheets, images that include
row and column headings. Creating these images is very easy to do, and they make
Excel documentation much easier to write and understand.
Please Pass the Word
If you like ExcelUser and this newsletter, please tell your friends and
associates. But if you think this letter can be improved in some way,
please tell me.
More later,
Charley |
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