Spreadsheet Models for Managers
Getting Access to Spreadsheet Models for Managers
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Spreadsheet Models for Managers
Session 13
Using Macros I
Summary of Pages
Macros, usually seen as a technical element of any spreadsheet model, are also an important tool of the manager. By encapsulating commonly used techniques in a macro, the manager assures that every time that technique is used, it’s used in exactly the same way. This is the most valuable attribute of any macro — it increases the reliability of the models that use it.
A second advantage, of course, is decreased development cost. Once you have the macro, using it is as easy as using any Excel worksheet function. All intermediate forms are subsumed into the macro. While the costs of any models that use the macro decline, the organization does have to build and maintain the macro, and that isn’t free. So choose wisely those clichés that you capture in macro form.
In this session, you’ll build a few simple macros. The goal of this session is to introduce you to some of the issues that arise for a macro writer. As a manager, you’ll benefit from some appreciation of those issues — you’ll be better able to manage macro writers, and you’ll have a better feel for what the trade-offs are.
Below is a summary of pages for Session 13.
- Review of Last Time
- What are macros?
- Function macros vs. command macros
- Why write a command macro?
- Why write a function macro?
- We’ll work with function macros only
- Terminology
- Examples of VBA function macros
- A little bit of notation
- Example
- Modules
- Module options
- How to build a macro to do depreciation
- Type declarations
- Return value type declaration
- Argument variable declarations
- Local variable declarations
- Returning a value
- A simple example
- Where we are so far
- Figure out what period number we’re in
- Methods and properties
- Cells, rows, and columns in a range
- The column number of the invoking cell
- The if statement
- A formula for period number
- All together now
- The main points
- Reference readings
- Preview of Next Time
Links to other materials for Session 13.
Last Modified: Wednesday, 27-Apr-2016 04:15:26 EDT
We focus on function macros in this course because they’re more likely than command macros to make a real difference in your facility with constructing models. For instance, when your customer wants to see result streams displayed as [Month1, Month2, Month3, Q1 Total, Month4, Month5, Month6, Q2 Total, …], you probably realize that such a layout makes copy/paste and fill very inconvenient. A macro can provide a simple means of producing the preferred layout from a more easily maintained pure month structure. It’s also easy to construct macros for running sums and running differences. Can you think of other applications for function macros that make your models easier to build and maintain?