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#279220 - 07/04/2006 23:11 Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Well, I won't pay the dollars (could amount to a couple hundred bucks) but the company I work for will.

Now, right up front, I'll try and talk you out of this.

I have an Excel spreadsheet that is truly a work of art -- it is a contract form with graphics, validation checks, warning messages, instruction popups, all that kind of good stuff. An extremely talented and capable friend and I have been working on and improving this form for more than a year now. It is fully developed, bug-free, and has been in daily use for at least a year.

Did I mention that it was complex?

Just to give you a hint of what you would be getting into, here is one of the formulas in the spreadsheet:

=IF(NOT(ISERROR(SEARCH("FLEX[",X18))),VALUE(MID(X18,
SEARCH("FLEX[",X18)+5,SEARCH("]",X18)-(SEARCH
("FLEX[",X18)+5))), IF(AH18>1,
(ROUNDUP((INT((F18-B18+1)/7)*(AH18-1)/AH18),0)
*(Q18+R18+S18+T18+U18+V18+W18)) + D117,
(ROUNDUP(INT((F18-B18+1)/7),0)
*(Q18+R18+S18+T18+U18+V18+W18)) + D117))

(I added some line feeds to split the above into separate lines so it would display better on the bbs.)

The complexity of the formula above isn't even the biggest part of the problem. I wish I could take credit for that formula, but it was written entirely by my partner in crime who is also a member of this bbs, and I can sort of understand the concepts in it but could never have written it myself.

If you were to take this on, I would have to educate you in some of the arcane aspects of the broadcast business, such as Skip Week scheduling, the Standard Broadcast Calendar, and why March 28 is really in April.

As stated before, the spreadsheet is complete and workable, except for one final feature that we have been unable to implement. Indeed, we haven't even been able to come up with a viable plan of attack. Simple enough in concept (just total up the dollars and allocate them by months) but not in practice. Before you decide, "Well, that should be easy enough..." take another look at that formula and ask yourself if someone could do that but can't do this, could it really be that easy?

Now, it is quite possible that a fresh set of eyes will look at it and see a simple, obvious method of doing it that will make us slap our heads and say "Doh!". An even better possibility is that the task can be run externally and called by the spreadsheet. The caveat here is that we cannot live with Excel's paranoia that pops up a warning messaage that requires action on the part of the user if the spreadsheet contains a macro. It has to be done in such a way that you click on the program shortcut icon and it opens the spreadsheet.

Any takers? Contact me by email burnside at alaska dot net or by pm. You may learn things about Excel that you never knew before. I certainly did.

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#279221 - 07/04/2006 23:35 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: tanstaafl.]
FireFox31
pooh-bah

Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
Man, that's tempting. I spend a lot of time making Excel do hard work for me, but I'm not that good. However, maybe you could get in touch with a "Microsoft MVP" (Most Valuable Professional). These guys and gals are GODS of all Microsoft software, and dwell on Usenet (microsoft.public.*) providing free info to anyone who asks.

Check out mvps.org and navigate to the list of Excel MVPs. Tims from David McRitchie, Jon Peltier, Chip Pearson, Debra Dalgleish, Rob Bovey, and others have saved my tail and countless hours of my time. They certainly could be hired for a few hours of consultation, and there's nobody else in the world I'd rather trust with such an Excel masterpiece.
_________________________
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FireFox31
110gig MKIIa (30+80), Eutronix lights, 32 meg stacked RAM, Filener orange gel lens, Greenlights Lit Buttons green set

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#279222 - 08/04/2006 01:45 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: tanstaafl.]
Attack
addict

Registered: 01/03/2002
Posts: 598
Loc: Florida
Are you trying to report on more than one year of data?
Is the data stored one row per record?

If only one year and all data for one record is on the same row then this might be simple. You talked about how March 28 is really April. Well first you need to make a formula for each record that gives the data the correct month but store that as a number. Now create a worksheet that queries your data set to only show you records that match the month you want. The query can include every column of data from the matching row. Now on a different worksheet you can create a formula that would sum the column from the other worksheet that is showing the money.

Storing the month as a number makes some things easier when you need to have Period totals also.

Feel free to PM me for my contact info if you would like to talk to me over the phone about this.
_________________________
Chad

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#279223 - 08/04/2006 02:50 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: Attack]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Feel free to PM me

I have taken the liberty of sending you an email with the spreadsheet attached. I hope that is OK, it is about half a megabyte in size. Make that about 150K after zipping. The spreadsheet is far more complex than can be described in a Q & A session. Each row of the spreadsheet contains beginning and ending dates that may or may not cross multiple months/years (different for each row) and seven columns of data that interact with three other columns in the same row to produce totals which are to be allocated by Standard Broadcast Month, not calendar month. (A standard broadcast month consists of either four or five Monday through Sunday weeks, ending on the final Sunday of the calendar month. I'll attach one of those to the email as well as the spreadsheet.

Play with the spreadsheet for a while and you'll begin to get the idea of what we are trying to do. The object is to allocate all of the dollars computed by the spreadsheet and display them in the month boxes below the scheduling grid.

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#279224 - 08/04/2006 05:29 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: tanstaafl.]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Perhaps some aspects of spretsheet's logic would be easier to implement as VBA macros rather than use strictly only Excel formula functions?
_________________________
Dragi "Bonzi" Raos Q#5196 MkII #080000376, 18GB green MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue

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#279225 - 08/04/2006 11:29 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: bonzi]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Quite possibly, but wouldn't that trigger Excel's security warnings?
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs

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#279226 - 08/04/2006 14:11 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: pgrzelak]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
Quite possibly, but wouldn't that trigger Excel's security warnings?

Depending on security settings, yes, it would. But I wonder whether it makes sense: "Warning, your program contains code!"
_________________________
Dragi "Bonzi" Raos Q#5196 MkII #080000376, 18GB green MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue

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#279227 - 08/04/2006 23:10 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: pgrzelak]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
I take it that it is important to retain the macro warnings.

There are two ways to do away with them.
1) Change the setting so excel stops checking for macros altogether.
2) Get your macros secruity signed.
_________________________
Glenn

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#279228 - 09/04/2006 00:02 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: tanstaafl.]
Anonymous
Unregistered


Maybe you'd be better off with your own custom stand-alone application that generates Excel sheets. It would most likely be a little more expensive than $200, but it might be an easier solution than dealing with Excel.

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#279229 - 09/04/2006 09:13 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: gbeer]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
I take it that it is important to retain the macro warnings.

There are two ways to do away with them.
1) Change the setting so excel stops checking for macros altogether.
2) Get your macros secruity signed.

I agree that capablity is important, in principle, as people generally don't expect they would be running a program in a genral-purpose language capable of doing all kind of nasty things when they just run a spreadsheet. Probably seting 'paranoia level' to medium and just click that 'enable macros' button every time we load a spreadsheet we know should be acceptable.

BTW, I am not familiar with this particular implementation of PKI security: how does one sign a set of macros; who is generating key pairs and distributing public ones, who is certifying authority - can our (that is, Doug's in this case) own organization be that, without much fuss? And will Excel prompt us whether we trust particular credentials, anyway?
_________________________
Dragi "Bonzi" Raos Q#5196 MkII #080000376, 18GB green MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue

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#279230 - 10/04/2006 01:53 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: gbeer]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
There are two ways to do away with them.
1) Change the setting so excel stops checking for macros altogether.
2) Get your macros secruity signed.


Can you give me more information on how to do this?

I am perfectly willing to run VB macros, as long as they can be done in such a way that I don't have to jump through hoops every time I try to open the spreadsheet.

BTW, I keep referring to "The Spreadsheet", which is a misnomer. It is really just a contract writing form. It is opened up as an excel template, the user then fills out the data, prints it out and either exits without saving, or does a Save As to keep a copy of it. The template is write protected so that they can't over-write it, and master copies of the template are hidden away so the original file is safe.

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#279231 - 10/04/2006 01:57 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: ]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Maybe you'd be better off with your own custom stand-alone application that generates Excel sheets. It would most likely be a little more expensive than $200, but it might be an easier solution than dealing with Excel.

Maybe... but I am not a programmer, and I have to support/update/enhance this application myself, so I'm pretty much stuck with doing it in Excel. Also, my co-author and I together have over 200 hours invested in this thing, and I'n not going to throw that away. Finally, the spreadsheet is working beautifully now, functional and bug-free. We just want to add that last, final (but not essential) feature to it.

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#279232 - 14/04/2006 01:17 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: tanstaafl.]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
You need a certificate from sombody like Verisign, or, reading below, there should be a Selfcert.exe program somewhere in the office loadpoint. The selfe signed certs are not a slam dunk, it seems to depend on security settings. I only know this much cause a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for ways to defeat that danged warning myself. Just hadn't gotten around to chasing it down yet.

From Excel's online help (I searched for "signed macro")
Quote:

Digitally sign a file or macro project
Show All
Hide All
You digitally sign (digital signature: An electronic, encryption-based, secure stamp of authentication on a macro or document. This signature confirms that the macro or document originated from the signer and has not been altered.) a file or a macro project (macro project: A collection of components, including forms, code, and class modules, that make up a macro. Macro projects created in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications can be included in add-ins and in most Microsoft Office programs.) by using a digital certificate (digital certificate: Attachment for a file, macro project, or e-mail message that vouches for authenticity, provides secure encryption, or supplies a verifiable signature. To digitally sign macro projects, you must install a digital certification.).

If you don't already have a digital certificate, you must obtain one.
How?

You can obtain a digital certificate from a commercial certification authority, such as VeriSign, Inc., or from your internal security administrator or Information Technology (IT) professional. Or, you can create a digital signature yourself using the Selfcert.exe tool.

To learn more about certification authorities that offer services for Microsoft products, see the list of Microsoft Root Certificate Program Members.

Notes

The hyperlink (hyperlink: Colored and underlined text or a graphic that you click to go to a file, a location in a file, a Web page on the World Wide Web, or a Web page on an intranet. Hyperlinks can also go to newsgroups and to Gopher, Telnet, and FTP sites.) in this topic goes to the Web. You can switch back to Help at any time.
Because a digital certificate you create yourself isn't issued by a formal certification authority, macro projects signed (macro project: A collection of components, including forms, code, and class modules, that make up a macro. Macro projects created in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications can be included in add-ins and in most Microsoft Office programs.) by using such a certificate are referred to as self-signed projects. Depending on how Microsoft Office digital-signature features are being used in your organization, you might be prevented from using such a certificate, and other users might not be able to run self-signed macros for security reasons.

Do one of the following:
Sign a file

On the Tools menu, click Options, and click the Security tab.
Click Digital signatures.
Click Add.
Select the certificate you want to add, and then click OK.
Sign a macro project

Open the file that contains the macro project you want to sign.
On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Visual Basic Editor.
In the Project Explorer, select the project you want to sign.
On the Tools menu, click Digital Signature.
Do one of the following:
If you haven't previously selected a digital certificate or want to use another one, click Choose, select the certificate, and then click OK twice.
To use the current certificate, click OK.
Tips

Sign macros only after your solution has been tested and is ready for distribution, because whenever code in a signed macro project is modified in any way, its digital signature is removed. However, if you have the proper digital certificate on your computer, the macro project will automatically be resigned when saved.

If you want to prevent users of your solution from accidentally modifying your macro project and invalidating your signature, lock the macro project before signing it. Your digital signature says only that you guarantee that the project has not been tampered with since you signed it. It does not prove that you wrote the project. So locking your macro project doesn't prevent another user from replacing the digital signature with another signature. Corporate administrators might re-sign templates (template: A file or files that contain the structure and tools for shaping such elements as the style and page layout of finished files. For example, Word templates can shape a single document, and FrontPage templates can shape an entire Web site.) and add-ins (add-in: A supplemental program that adds custom commands or custom features to Microsoft Office.) so that they can control exactly what users may run on their computers.

If you create an add-in that adds code to a macro project, your code should determine if the project is digitally signed and notify the user of the consequences of modifying a signed project before continuing.

When digitally signing macros, consider obtaining a timestamp so that others can verify your signature even after the certificate used for the signature has expired. See Microsoft Office Online for more information on macro security and timestamps.


_________________________
Glenn

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#279233 - 14/04/2006 05:12 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: gbeer]
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5680
Loc: London, UK
Quote:
You need a certificate from sombody like Verisign, or, reading below, there should be a Selfcert.exe program somewhere in the office loadpoint. The selfe signed certs are not a slam dunk, it seems to depend on security settings.


Oddly, I was looking at signing code this week:http://www.differentpla.net/node/507

The trick is to create a self-signed root certificate, which you put in your "Trusted Roots" store, and then to sign the code with a certificate derived from that one. I'm not sure how you go about signing Excel code, but generating the key is probably as shown on my webpage, assuming you can get hold of the executables mentioned.
_________________________
-- roger

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#279234 - 08/06/2006 19:34 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: tanstaafl.]
Mach
old hand

Registered: 15/07/2002
Posts: 828
Loc: Texas, USA
I've been helping Doug with his Excel macro. The only thing that remains is to sign the macro but I don't have access to a publishing certificate to generate a key so as to turn off the macro message. SelfCert still generates a warning message when security is set to Medium or High.

Would anyone be willing to sign this for him? Verisign or equivalent that is likely to already be on his user machines would be best.

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#279235 - 09/06/2006 05:03 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: Mach]
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5680
Loc: London, UK
Quote:
SelfCert still generates a warning message when security is set to Medium or High.


As long as you put your self-generated CA certificate into Doug's "Trusted CA" store, it should just work. It doesn't actually need to be signed the expensive way.

See http://www.differentpla.net/node/507 for some related stuff on the subject.
_________________________
-- roger

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#279236 - 09/06/2006 10:24 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: Roger]
Mach
old hand

Registered: 15/07/2002
Posts: 828
Loc: Texas, USA
Ok, I'll give it a go.

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#279237 - 14/06/2006 18:47 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: Roger]
Mach
old hand

Registered: 15/07/2002
Posts: 828
Loc: Texas, USA
Thanks Roger! That worked. After the initial macro warning, Excel allows a user to add the certificate to their trusted publishers archive and no more warning.

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#279238 - 15/06/2006 02:24 Re: Will pay $$ for some very complicated Excel help [Re: Mach]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
That worked.

Indeed it did.

In my extremely biased opinion, that spreadsheet is a true work of art, pushing the limits of what can be accomplished with Excel.

Many thanks to Alvin (aka: Mach) and Paul (aka: pgrzelak) for the many hours of help they have given me with this project.

If anyone would like to see the final result, send me a PM and I'll email you a copy. It's about 520K, although I guess it will zip down to about 200K.

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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