This is a guest post by Vijay, our in-house VBA Expert.
In this article we well learn how to use VBA and Microsoft Outlook to send emails with your reports as attachment.
Scenario
We have an excel based reporting template for the Customer Service Dashboard. We want to update this template using VBA code to create a static version and email it to a list of people. We will define the recipient list in a separate sheet.
Features
1. Code will automatically create necessary folders to save the output file.
2. Email sheet to contain the list of people who are going to receive the report.
3. Sending mail using Microsoft Outlook, primary target is corporate people who are using Outlook as their mail program.
On our VBA project we would need to add references to the below
1. Microsoft Outlook Object Library
2. Microsoft Scripting Runtime Library
Please note the Outlook library will be available depending on the version of Microsoft Outlook installed on your system, in the example workbook the reference is towards version 14 as available with Outlook 2010. If you have a different version of Outlook installed on your system, you need to point to the correct library installed.
We have assumed the data used to create the report is already available in the sheet called “rawData”.
We have then updated the “rawData” sheet with 2 new columns having the Date and Time.
Date has been calculated in the rawData sheets using the Date Function.
=DATE(YEAR(B2),MONTH(B2),DAY(B2))
The time has been calculated by converting the actual time of the call into the relevant 30 minute interval.
=INT((TIME(HOUR(B2),MINUTE(B2),SECOND(B2)))/(1/48))*(1/48)
If you need to setup your report into 15 minutes interval then replace 1/48 with 1/96.
We have then used the COUNTIFS and SUMIFS function to create the data view in the Interval Data sheet.
Understanding the VBA code to send mails
I will be discussing only the key elements of the code here.
Sheets(Array("Cover", "Interval Data", "rawData")).Copy
This list will create a new workbook containing the 3 sheets that we have included within the Array() parameter. If your report has more sheets feel free to add them.
Set objfile = New FileSystemObject
If objfile.FolderExists(xDir & xMonth) Then
If objfile.FileExists(xPath) Then
objfile.DeleteFile (xPath)
newWB.SaveAs Filename:=xPath, FileFormat:=xlOpenXMLWorkbook, Password:="", WriteResPassword:="", ReadOnlyRecommended:=False _
, CreateBackup:=False
Application.ActiveWorkbook.Close
Else
newWB.SaveAs Filename:=xPath, FileFormat:=xlOpenXMLWorkbook, Password:="", WriteResPassword:="", ReadOnlyRecommended:=False _
, CreateBackup:=False
Application.ActiveWorkbook.Close
End If
Else
xNewFolder = xDir & xMonth
MkDir xNewFolder
newWB.SaveAs Filename:=xPath, FileFormat:=xlOpenXMLWorkbook, Password:="", WriteResPassword:="", ReadOnlyRecommended:=False _
, CreateBackup:=False
Application.ActiveWorkbook.Close
End If
The above code checks if the correct folder exists for the report to be saved or not and creates one if not existing. This also takes cares of overwriting the existing report in case you need to re-run the report again during the same day.
Creating the List of recipients
currentWB.Activate
Sheets("Email").Visible = True
Sheets("Email").Select
strEmailTo = ""
strEmailCC = ""
strEmailBCC = ""
xStp = 1
Do Until xStp = 4
Cells(2, xStp).Select
Do Until ActiveCell = ""
strDistroList = ActiveCell.Value
If xStp = 1 Then strEmailTo = strEmailTo & strDistroList & "; "
If xStp = 2 Then strEmailCC = strEmailCC & strDistroList & "; "
If xStp = 3 Then strEmailBCC = strEmailBCC & strDistroList & "; "
ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
Loop
xStp = xStp + 1
Loop
The above code will create the list of people for whom the report is intended. We make use of the Do Until Loop here to update the 3 variables to hold the TO, CC and BCC list. The actual email addresses are captured from the Email sheet of the report template.
Please note: there should be no blanks in the list when you are defining the same.
Set olApp = New Outlook.Application
Dim olNs As Outlook.Namespace
Set olNs = olApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
olNs.Logon
Set olMail = olApp.CreateItem(olMailItem)
olMail.To = strEmailTo
olMail.CC = strEmailCC
olMail.BCC = strEmailBCC
olMail.Subject = Mid(xFile, 1, Len(xFile) - 4)
olMail.Body = vbCrLf & "Hello Everyone," _
& vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Please find attached the " & Mid(xFile, 1, Len(xFile) - 4) & "." _
& vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Regards," _
& vbCrLf & "Chandoo.Org"
The above code creates a new instance of Outlook and then logs in to your default mailbox, using which we will be sending the mail out to the recipients. We also create the body of the mail and specify the To, CC and BCC list.
olMail.Attachments.Add xPath
olMail.Display
Finally we add the attachment to the email we have created and then using the Display method bring it on the screen. You may also use the .Send method to send the mail directly.
That is all the code we needed to create a copy of the report with selected few sheets and then send them out using VBA. There are a lot of other methods using which you may be able to send out mails, however this specifically helps out to create report templates to use within your organization and send out mails.
Do you also use VBA and Other methods to send mails, if yes please share the same for the benefit of everyone.
Download Excel File
Click here to download the file & save it on your system and use it to understand this technique.
Do you use Excel to automate emails?
I often use Excel to automatically email reports & messages. This is quite useful when you have to send a snapshot of a report to a large team, but need to customize the email for each recipient.
What about you? Have you used Excel to automate emails? What is your experience like? Do you use VBA or some other technique? Please share using comments.
More on VBA & Macros
If you want to learn more about using VBA to automate reporting & email tasks, read these:
- Automatically Generate Report Variations using Excel
- Birthday Reminder & Email in Excel
- What is VBA & Macros? Introduction
- Excel VBA Example Macros
- VBA tutorial videos
Join our VBA Classes
If you want to learn how to develop applications like these and more, please consider joining our VBA Classes. It is a step-by-step program designed to teach you all concepts of VBA so that you can automate & simplify your work.
15 Responses to “Highlight Employees by Performance Rating – Conditional Formatting Challenge”
While this might solve the question Shelly asked, there is another option that might be more useful - a pivot table could make a list of people who fall into the various categories, so, if you needed to simply see who got in the top bracket to give them a bonus, you would have that list
Simply sorting by the rankings would work too, but you would knock them out of alphabetical order.
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The solution I chose makes use of the percentile formula.
The percentile formula returns the value representing the K-th percentile of a range of values. The range of values is the first criteria, and K is the second criteria in the formula.
I applied Conditional Formatting according to the formulas in the order below:
5% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.95) Dark Blue
15% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.85) Light Blue
65% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.1) Green
10% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.05) Light Red
5% =$C6<PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.05) Dark Red
The issue I noted with this approach is that Zambi was not highlighted in my solution as it is in the solution provided. Unless I am mistaken, and I very well may be, the 10th percentile for this data set is at 2.21, so Zambi would fall above the 10th percentile with a PR of 2.3.
The first step to this was figuring out the 'buckets'; what scores should fall into each range. In attempting to match the formatting of the spreadsheet, I determined the buckets below.
5% = 95% to 100%
10% = 90% up to but not including 95%
65% = 10% up to but not including 90%
10% = 5% up to but not including 10%
5% = under 5%
After that, it is a relatively simple matter to plug the necessary values into the conditional formatting formulas as shown above.
One final consideration is that while the buckets above match the color banding on the spreadsheet, I believe that the original request suggests a different color banding with 6 buckets shown below.
Top 5% = 95 to 100% Dark blue
Top 10% = 85 up to but not including 95% Light blue
Top 65% = 35 up to but not including 85% Green
Bottom 10% = 10% down to but not including 5% Light Red
Bottom 5% = 5% or under Dark Red
This leaves one final bucket of 10 to 35% (exclusive of both values) that is not highlighted and so would remain white.
Thank you Chandoo and Shelly for an interesting and useful exercise. This is certainly a valuable technique to have in my reporting bag of tricks.
Use of PERCENTILE is a smarter way of doing it. Below is my solution.
First 5 % = Apply conditional formatting (Dark Blue) as highlight ">=" =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.95)
Next 15% = Apply conditional formatting (Lighter Blue) as highlight between =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.95)-0.01 and =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.8)
Next 65% = Apply conditional formatting as highlight (Olive Green) between =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.8)-0.01 and =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.15)
Next 10% = Apply conditional formatting as highlight (Lighter Red) between =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.15)-0.01 and =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.05)
Bottom 5% = Apply conditional formatting (Red) as less than =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.05)
I agree, this is a challenge faced by HR managers every year and use of percentile formulae is the most popular solution which permits further processing like making bell curve, applying increments based on segmentation etc.
Hi Chandoo,
I came at the same solution as yours (not looking at yours first) but I have hard coded the conditions in the conditional formatting. For example:
=AND($C6>=$D$10,$C6<$D$9)
I have done the same thing 5 times for each condition. This makes the formatting independent of the order of specification. I think it will work better across versions of excel.
To copy the same thing in all sheets, Shelly can copy these formatted cells with format painter and apply it to the relevant cells in next sheet and so on! I know 700 sheets will be difficult but I dont know of any other way to apply conditional formating rules to the whole sheet.
First i have used percentile formula in the next column of "percentile Threshold" where E5, E6.. is input to colour code.
The idea behind doing this is to replicate the formula for any range and any threshold
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E5)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E6)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E7)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E8)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E9)
Now i have given logic to different employee by applying "if Formula"
=+IF(J3>=$G$5,1,IF(J3>=$G$6,2,IF(J3>=$G$7,3,IF(J3>=$G$8,4,5))))
where 'J" referes to PR and "G" refers to percentile derived from above mentioned formula.
once again it is replicable (just change reference points)
Now comes the major part of Conditional Formatting, i have used "use a formula to determine which cells to be formatted"
Formula =$j=5, format "required colour" Applies to "$I$3:$J$30"
plus put tick on stop if true
This solves the query, important point that this is repeatable and can be done for n number of departments
Thanks !
I had done some reading on it and in Excel 2010 a new function has been introduced, percentile.exc. Attaching a video which also talks why the old percentile function shouldn't be used as it acts erroneous at times. Might be worth a watch Chandoo,
http://www.itechtalk.com/thread10579.html
@Deepa
Quit correct.
Where ever you use statistical spreadsheet functions and are using excel 2010 you should use the new versions of the functions as MS did a lot of work to speed up and fix errors in the old functions.
Warning: If you use the new Excel 2010 statistical functions in Named Formulas most of them will crash excel so do keep that in mind.
Hello Chandoo,
When i first read the challenge file, i thought, the color that need to be applied for a given rule, also need to be picked dynamically as given in rule set. But in the solution file, i found that color is hard Coded. So in case, someone has same data, but wants different colors, he/she needs to goto manage rules and change colors.
Let me know if my understanding is correct, and if yes, can we also make the color to be applied dynamic?
Thanks
Kishore
HI I ALSO USED THE PERCENTILE FUNCTION. HOWEVER, I WENT A STEP FURTHER AND USING THE SMALL() FUNCTION I SORTED THE DATA BY PERCENTILE SO THE COLOSCHEME WOULD BE GROUPED BASED ON THE VALUE. THIS WAY IT IS BETTER AND EASIER TO VIEW.
[...] recently posted a challenge to help a reader with a [...]
Hi, i have got doubt regarding to the percentages that has been put in chandoo's spreadsheet, i cant understadn how he put directly. can some one please explain how chandoo put the percetages straight way that i stated below..
5%
15%
60%
10%
5%
I have stumbled on this post as the solution has been already given so I have taken the liberty to record a video where I show the implementation of it as well as adding a filtering feature which I hope can prove to be useful.
Thank you
http://www.xlninja.com/2012/06/28/how-to-use-excel-to-highlight-employee-performance-rating/
[...] scriu nici macar un cuvant din urmatorul articol. Astazi mi-am citit mailul si hopa challenge de la Chandoo. Cum puteam sa refuz asa ceva si m-am apucat de citit, iar dupa 5 min i-am spus sotului ca pe asta [...]
Question for Chandoo:
I came to your site late but am totally loving these challenges 🙂
I guess it all boils down to how the bins are set up.
I agree with the PERCENTILE.INC function.
pls help me understand where I am wrong.
I have determined following the bins:
bottom 5% <=2.00 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,.05))
lower 15% (5+10) <= 2.40 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,.15))
lower 80% (5+10+65) <=3.46 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,.80))
lower 95% (5+10+65+15) <=4.00 (F6:F33 =PERCENTILE(range,.95))
top 5% <=4.20 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,1.00))
I find that only Tom is highest scorer and unique top 5% achiever.
I notice that Chandoo has included Christy and Daniel in top 5% achievers. How can there be 3 people in top 5% out of a population of 28 (5% of 28 = 1.4, i.e. only one person can achieve that status)?
I tried different ways but cannot get to that distribution.
Rest of the work is simply organizing the conditional formatting rules with Stop If True box checked.
Thanks for your insights