Work Related Task

[jefferycarman]

I have been tasked with something a little outside my area of... well, we will call it, expertise.

My boss would like me to create an excell spreadsheet and write some code to make it extract information from some reports we use for tracking information on our products. The idea is a spreadsheet that can be updated by pulling the reports and clicking a few macros.

Anyone know a good website to help walk me through this? We do not have a person on staff at the moment who does this sort of thing, and that leaves it for me to figure out.

I will be playing with the code for a couple days. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[PandaNin]

What format are the source reports in? Are you going to import them into excel first or are you going to try to access it via ODBC? Few million directions you can go.

 

[jefferycarman]

I have not done this sort of thing before, but the format they are showing me appears to put it into excell first.

We use the SAP program. From what I can see when the reports are pulled they go into excell (I will be clarifying this shortly). If it looks like how I am seeing it, then just have to pull the reports, save them appropriately and then figure out some macros.

I will get some more info in a minute.

 

[PandaNin]

Little manual work but nothing terribly difficult. You'll just need to import the worksheets into a single spreadsheet and have your macros lying on a top worksheet that pulls from them.

 

[turbobusa2000]

If your not familiar with writing code this might be a little difficult to learn on the fly. That's just my opinion. Good luck.

 

[PandaNin]

Here's some useful links. If you have difficulties just ping me and I'll do what I can.

Add Worksheets | Excel Macro To Add Each Day’s Report as A New Worksheet in an Excel Workbook

Julian's Excel Macro (VBA) Tips for Beginners

Excel VBA Macro Tutorial and Examples
Schedules to Refresh Data Automatically using VBA Macro | Excel VBA Macro Tutorial and Examples

 

[Commuta_Busa]

hmmm SAP Alot of directors are used to seeing there data in speadsheet formats and have a difficult time adapting to SAP. What module are you guys using? You mentioned he wants to see his products. Is this inventory management or sales and distribution?

Anytime you start using static extracts of data from a dynamic system you begin a journey down a very manual process. Each time you need to refresh you'll have to follow the whole ETL process. Believe it or not, the problem you're having is a training issue.

I've worked with lots of companies that have SAP but have added all kinds of process layers outside of the system because of poor training and a lack of knowledge to the systems capabilities.

For a one off adhoc report it's fine to do manual extracts but if it's going to be a report used more than once or expanded you may want to look to the IT team. Find out points of contact that are famillier with the BW module. They often intigrate Crystal reports as a friendly front end reporting tool.

Learing how to use VBA and if needed ODBC on the fly is very time consuming and inefficient.

 

[jefferycarman]

I do have some time to kill for the next week or so. So I will use this as a learning experience and down time filler.

Thank you for the SAP info. I have not been a big fan of it so far, but the training on it is very weak. So yes I do know it is a training issue. At least partly. The powers that be want a digital display of where the product is in the manufacturing process. SAP is the only thing that gets updated at every step, so that is where they want to pull the info. It is looking to be very manual, and very time consuming. So with the heads up on that I will make sure they get the hint that this will hurt more than figuring out something automated through the IT's.

And yeah, we can get all our reports to excel so that is not a problem.

Thank you all for the information. I will talk with our IT department and see what they say.

 

[jefferycarman]

Thank you for the links Panda. I will be reading up on this for a bit.

 

[Commuta_Busa]

If you guys are focused on the PP module in SAP there are some "dashboard" options. Things get complicated if you're using APO as well. I can understand the weak SAP training. It's an enterprise solution so most of the training is process driven. It sounds like you guys need something that gives a live flow of materials and the production process. You can track anything through the whoel process. Your finance department may be able to help map the entire process. There are always key financial triggers throguh the whole production process. If you can define a functional document then IT can translate this into a tech doc and if needed create some ABAP coding to give you the results as defined in yoru documentation.

 

[jefferycarman]

Awesome! Thank you Commuta! I will approach my boss with this and see what we can come up with. Between us we are driving almost all of the production area projects that are getting things current. Unfortunately he is paid to do it and I am just a production worker A few more years and I will have my degree and some nice tags on the resume.

Thanks again!

 

[BIG GUY]

Good luck with getting the work done. I wish I was a little more computer savvy.

 

[el stumpo]

Send me a PM with exactly what you are trying to do and examples. I deal a lot with excel and different reporting tools..