What should be the most straight-forward way (technology/framework/programing language) to get a webpage equivalent of an Excel Pivot table?
I have a table with raw data and I would like to be able to represent them as a pivot table depending on user choices/filters.
If possible it should be able to make some basic calculations (count, average, %) but if it would make things much more complicated, I can provide it already in the raw data (I don't know what is faster as webpage - calculating with smaller data or "just searching" with broader data).
Which technology shoud be the most appropriate for this kind of service (without being an overkill)?
Well, you could acheive this in more than 1 language (and you didn't mention using third party tools) so it's hard to recommend one over the other... Since you mentioning VBa I suspect VB.NET would be a good starting point.
Although you can embed Excel into webpages. Check out the Excel Web App
More details are here http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/web-apps-help/introduction-to-excel-web-app-HA010378338.aspx
When you open your workbook in SkyDrive or SharePoint, Excel Web App
opens the workbook in the browser, where you can move around the
workbook, sort, filter, expand and collapse PivotTables, and even
recalculate the workbook.
Here is a general demo of it working: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/embed-an-excel-spreadsheet-on-a-web-page-FX102602477.aspx
Related
I have a MS Access 2013 file that I am using. There are two possibly related concerns. For some context, this is an MS Access 2013 file with some forms and some tables and a bit of VBA for the logic of how those two interact. For versioning, the file has been copied and pasted with a datestamp on it for the newer version.
The first concern is that all the file sizes for the various files is exactly the same, even though data has been added and some changes to the forms were made.
The second concern is that when I right click on a table and go to table properties, it says "Shortcut to Table (Local): table_name" where table_name is the name of the table. It appears that this is a shortcut to a table somewhere, but I'm not sure where. The forms are also shortcuts to forms, but I don't see the destination form in my file anywhere, even after unhiding system objects. My questions regarding this are: how did this happen (I was assuming it had something to do with the fact that I copied and pasted the file) and where is the file that these are a shortcut to?
Everything seems to work fine, but I'm concerned that if one of the legacy files gets removed that I might lose some data. Is my data being stored within this file, or did it get split somehow and the data is being stored in a different file somewhere? I just want to have a better grasp of what exactly is going on.
I feel like I have a good handle on the SQL and a pretty good grasp of the VBA, but the MS Access specific nuances are something I'm still gaining familiarity with.
Well, it seems it was as simple as changing the view in your navigation pane to something else than custom!
I am currently working on a database which will bring a number of excel sheets together. I have created a link between the ones in which I need and set up relationships in Access.
I have first-year degree experience of Microsoft software packages. I am not going to move from Excel to Access as other team members are more comfortable using it. However running things like reports, creating forms and querying data can be easier in Access.
The Problem:
I am trying to query data from a linked spreadsheet and it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Often more than none my queries return blank when I know they shouldn't.
Is this something to do with the table being linked and not an access table?
Please see an example query that I have set up
Thank you in advance.
If I assume that Status On is a Date field then your criteria is treating this as text, and this expression:
Like "*/*/2013"
may cause unexpected return results, depending particularly on the default Date format of Excel. Use the criteria:
Year([Status On])=2013
which will be much more reliable, not depending on the formatting of the date, purely on the fact that it is a recognisable date.
I don't usually have issues linking to Excel files unless:
The file is Open
The Excel files has links to other files or macros
It is corrupted in some way.
If you are linking to an Excel file then it, ideally, should be a very simple file with, preferably, no other content than a single table of data.
I'm trying to write a Macro that retrieves data on all HTTP Post forms from a webpage, and then displays the possible inputs as column headings in a worksheet. (Later I'll write another macro that constructs the appropriate requests based on input from the rows below.)
I've spent a day trying to parse the HTML with regex, (classic rookie mistake, right?), and it's a disaster. Nothing seems to work for more than a couple of webpages.
My question is sort of a big picture one. Should it be able to work with REGEX? Should I be taking an entirely different approach? Is this too big a task for someone who doesn't know a whole lot about html, and web development more broadly? I thought it would be a simple project, but it just doesn't seem to be.
don't use regex. use an html parser. Since you said you're using vba, I'll make a guess that you have excel installed. excel has a "import data from web" function that works on any well formed html table.
and if that doesn't work, most platforms that have vba also have a web browser control of some kind. load your target web page in an instance of said control, and access the table you want with the DOM's methods.
I have a huge MS Word file I use for personal notes but I want it to be more flexible. The file is made from short articles (600 words) with date, title, sometimes a table or some images. I came up with the idea of separating the single articles an put them in Access, to extract them from the database with queries, add tags, sort chronologically.
One big question is: which format should I use? I tried Access 2010 Rich Text Edit but it doesn't show tables, and I don't know where to store images. My idea is to store images outside the file.
Another thing I tried is to store the files as HTML in the database directory, but when I try to add some interface functionality I encounter problems with the most trivial things, like making VBA open the associated file. I don't like storing outside Access also because I don't have full-text search.
The primary requisite for this application is that it must not be cumbersome: it's a prototype I want to use to see if my model of storing notes works, so I don't want to spend a month programming an user interface, and if I note any defect at runtime I must be able to switch to design mode and fix it in minutes. If I want to write something, i don't have to worry about HTML syntax but I want to be able to add some simple table or image.
What I finally search is a HTML viewer in Access interface that receives an HTML string (composed by a query) and displays it.
At this moment I'm considering to remain with my MS Word file because switching seems too complex, although I don't like the sequentiality of articles and the hierarchy of chapters/subchapters, which made me think about this Idea.
The answer to all those problems was Evernote, which is like a Wiki you can edit quickly also from a smartphone, with or without an internet connection, which syncs to a master version on an Evernote server and without the constraint of having to invent a title for every page/idea.
If I had a huge Word document like yours, I'd probably split it into individual files and use something like dtSearch.
I am trying to build a user interface which will allow users to choose what kind of information they want, then based on these selected conditions, I need to query an access database and retrieve the corresponding data for future calculation. During calculation, there are two additional tables that I will query from. Finally, I need to display the calculated results to users. Now I have some questions:
Which one will be easier if I use excel as a front-end to users and retrieve querying data from Access to excel vs. I use access forms as a front-end to users and directly work with access to query data?
Does access forms can perform functions like allow users to select options from a drop down list? and once options selected, Access will query the target info?
Can Access perform intermediate calculation for large amount records? Will it get very slow? Compared to excel, which one is better in terms of calculation?
I never use Access before and just know a little about Excel VBA, not totally familiar with it, not to mention object models. So, in this case, which way is time-saving for me? or they are probably the same time-consuming?
Anything else that I should be aware of?
Thanks so much!
Bing
Definitely Access - it is specifically made for working with, querying, and reporting on data. The language of VBA that you have experience with in Excel is the exact same language used for coding in MS Access!
Access, no question!
Absolutely. Of course it doesn't magically know this as your requirement. You have to drop the combo box on the form yourself, and then in the OnChange event of the combo box, alter a query statement that displays results to filter based on the user's selection.
Sure. Make a temp table (a table that is only used for the calculation), populate the records with INSERT statements, apply intermediate calculations with UPDATE statements, and display the results. Access is built for this kind of thing and will most likely be faster than Excel.
Access uses VBA as well. There may be a larger learning curve to switch, but if you are familiar with the user interface objects in Excel such as Button, Combo Box, etc., they will be very similar and yet more intuitive in Access (Because that's what Access was made for)
Access has some quirks. Google a few tutorials and get some background on the ways Access is traditionally used for your kinds of scenarios and it will go a long way toward streamlining your development.
Start with the simplest model that will accomplish what your requirements are, and implement it. Then work through the quirks and bugs that you find with Google as your friend, and you should be able to get something solid pretty quickly! As you get into the experience, feel free to post new questions with specific problems you find along the way.
Best Regards,