Week 6 Discussion

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From the course by Macquarie University

Excel Skills for Business: Intermediate II

309 ratings

Macquarie University

Excel Skills for Business: Intermediate II

309 ratings

Course 3 of 4 in the Specialization Excel Skills for Business

Spreadsheet software remains one of the most ubiquitous pieces of software used in workplaces across the world. Learning to confidently operate this software means adding a highly valuable asset to your employability portfolio. In this third course of our Excel specialization Excel Skills for Business you will delve deeper into some of the most powerful features Excel has to offer. When you have successfully completed the course you will be able to Check for and prevent errors in spreadsheets; Create powerful automation in spreadsheets; Apply advanced formulas and conditional logic to help make informed business decisions; and Create spreadsheets that help forecast and model data. Once again, we have brought together a great teaching team that will be with you every step of the way. Nicky, Prashan and myself will guide you through each week. As we are exploring these more advanced topics, we are following Alex who is an Excel consultant called in by businesses that experience issues with their spreadsheets.

From the lesson

Recording Macros

We all love a bit of automation, and this module teaches you just that. By the time you have completed this module, you will be able to identify the uses of macros, as well as create, edit and manage them to increase your efficiency.

Week 6 Introduction2:09

Week 6 Discussion3:39

Meet the Instructors

Dr Yvonne Breyer
Director, Learning and Teaching
Faculty of Business and Economics

Welcome to week six, our final week.

And welcome, Nicky.

>> Hi, Prashan.

>> So now we've saved the best for last, and this week we're talking about macros.

So Nicky, what exactly is a macro?

Well, a macro is a small program, but

it allows us to automate repetitive procedures in Excel.

And this can not only speed things up and save us hours, but

it can also reduce human error.

>> So, you mentioned small programs.

Does that mean our learners now have to become programmers?

>> No, fortunately not.

Excel provides us with a facility to actually

record things that we do in Excel and create recorded macros.

And that's what we're going to be looking at.

>> So Excel effectively writes the program for us?

>> Exactly right.

Each step we perform in Excel is recorded as a line of code

in a language called VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications.

And this code is then stored in a module within the workbook.

>> So, what if I make a mistake?

I want to change something or edit something in VBA.

Can we do that?

>> Absolutely.

And one of the things we'll be looking at how to do in the practice videos is open

up the Visual Basic editor and make some small modifications to our macros.

>> So macros, can that help me importing charts or importing data into Excel?

Absolutely, in fact,

those are really good examples of exactly the kind of thing you can do with a macro.

>> What if I have lots of workbooks that I'm working with, or

I want to import a chart from an Excel file into a PowerPoint file?

>> Can you do that with a macro?

Well, the short answer is yes.

But once the task get's really complex, it can't necessarily be recorded.

So the minute you go out of the Excel application, yeah, you're not going to

be able to record yourself doing it in Excel, because you're not in Excel.

There, what you may need to start looking at, is actually writing the code itself.

And that's getting into a level of complexity that we're not going

to be covering in this course.

But we're going to give our learners a good grounding in how the code works so

if they decide they need to go that extra step, they will be able to.

>> So for our learners, any downsides for using macros they need to be aware of?

>> Yeah, well, macros are brilliant.

But at the same time, we need to be careful not to reinvent the wheel.

Excel already offers us heaps of automation facilities.

So we have templates, we have tables, we have hyperlinks for navigating.

We don't want to try to improve on what Excel has done with our macros,

because chances are we won't.

Rather use macros for

those very specialized tasks that Excel can't do for us.

The other thing is,

it's very important that we deal with the complexity layer that macros introduce.

So they must be properly documented.

And you must ensure that somebody else in the organization can also maintain and,

if necessary, edit that macro.

>> Sounds great.

Thank you Nicky.

We've got some great practice videos coming up for you.

Download the Excel workbooks so that you can work alongside us step-by-step.

And when you're done with those, come back and

practice them again, because practice makes permanent.

Check out this week's toolbox, as well as this week's great ninja tip.

And don't forget the practice challenge to get a chance to practice your Excel skills

in a totally different context to increase your confidence.

Now, it's over to you.

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