Howdy again, folks. Jeff Weir here, borrowing the keys to the blog off Chandoo again. (Hopefully I don’t scratch it again).
How remiss of me…jacob reminded me in the comments of my previous BLOATED post on good spreadsheet anti-bloat practices that I completely missed one of Excel’s newest and most efficient anti-bloat features: PowerPivot. So today’s post is going to rectify that. In less words, I promise.
Does my data look flat in this?
In Rob Collie’s excellent book DAX Formulas for PowerPivot – the Excel Pro’s Guide to Mastering DAX, Rob makes the point that before PowerPivot came along, Excel pros spent lots of their time ‘flattening’ data in order to feed their pivots. In fact, many Excel Pro’s had become Excel Pro’s largely on the back of those data flattening skills.
What does he mean by ‘flattening’? Well, PivotTables are such finicky eaters that they only like digital Pizza. That is, if you want a PivotTable to fully digest your data directly from the worksheet, then you need to lay that data out in a hierarchical structure that obfuscating geeks like to call a flat file. (You or I call a flat file a table. That’s why we’re not geeks.)
A PivotTable’s rather restrictive diet reminds me of this joke:
Question: What do you feed someone with ebola, SARS, and Swine flu?
Answer: Anything that fits under the door.
So your picky PivotTable will only eat flat, boring old Tables. In fact, it will only eat ONE table, and that table better have good labeling of all the ingredients (i.e. column headers) or your precious PivotTable will not even open it’s mouth.
Which is a problem, because the BOSS just ordered you to serve up some crazy concoction that isn’t even on your regular menu. The BOSS wants you to mix a little bit of this table with a tiny bit of that table, then add a sprinkling of some other table over the top as garnish. And the BOSS expects you to slam all this into your pre-heated PivotOven for a quick bake at 2.30GHz for no more than a few minutes, and then serve it up to the BOSS right away. Because the BOSS is hungry for data, and the BOSS is hungry NOW, DAMMIT!
So what did you do? You used as many VLOOKUPS as you have rows in your final flat data-set to join just one column of one of those additional tables onto the first table, didn’t you. And then you repeated this VLOOKUP frenzy for each and every other column that you ended up bringing into your steam-rolled mega-flat pivot-ready data-set. All of which resulted in one very bloated filesize, compared to the original footprint of the underlying tables.
And while you managed to serve up the order just in time, boy did you make a mess back in the kitchen. Formulas everywhere, and the whole joint is slowing down as a result. What’s worse, the BOSS liked the taste of what you just served up. So you’ll be working in the same messy kitchen next week to refresh it, unless you tidy up somehow.
Let’s face it…it’s such a complete mess, that you’re screwed.
Or are you?
PowerPivot….No fast data joint should be without it!
If PowerPivot was marketed on the Shopping Channel, then some obnoxiously loud voice would say something like this about it:
It slices. It dices. It joins. But wait, there’s more!
It cooks. It cleans. It washes up. It takes up practically no bench-space. But wait, there’s STILL more!
In fact there’s so much more, that that’s a subject for another post. Fortunately Chandoo already wrote it: What is Power Pivot – an Introduction. (Chandoo, that title is way too descriptive. You’ll never make Class 1 Geek unless you learn to obfuscate, my man).
Give that link a spin, because this product lives up to it’s hype. Indeed, no modern fast data joint should be without it. Emphasis on modern though, because you’ll need Excel 2010 or later in order to use this bloat-busting add-in.
But back to how it helps with bloat, the subject of this post. PowerPivot cuts through potential bloat, because it is a lot less fussy than Old-School-Pivots about what it eats:
- It allows you to create pivots on the fly from any mix of multiple data sources – Access, SQL, Excel Tables, Web Data, etc – and then effortlessly slice, dice, and navigate to your hearts content.
- You can incorporate/mash up additional data sources at any point.
- You can create very powerful calculated fields within PivotTables that simply are not possible to replicate with in traditional pivots.
- All without ship-loads of VLOOKUPS.
In fact, Rob Collie – master of both PowerPivot and understatement – has a great video showing how PowerPivot is the answer to “the dreaded VLOOKUP problem, among other things” in his post Be Gone, Scary VLOOKUP”.
So it does away with all those nasty VLOOKUPs. But that’s not the half of it…PowerPivot has some amazing data compression stuff going on under the hood too! (Check out Rob’s post Surprising Example of PowerPivot Compression for more on this.)
Okay, I’m convinced. But I’m a little scared, too…
If you want help to learn PowerPivot, then help is at hand: Check out Chandoo’s Advanced Excel & Power Pivot Training Classes. Rob Collie puts in a guest appearance in one of the modules, too. (And I think that you get a copy of his great book as part of the course fee.)
But before I return you to your regular schedule, be warned: Chandoo has the following public service message on his PowerPivot landing page that you might want to consider, if your boss is attractive as mine is:
Warning: Learning Excel and Powerpivot might suddenly make you boss fall in love with you.
Indeed, that is a good warning that I will heed, Chandoo. I’m burning Rob’s PowerPivot books as you read this.
About the Author.
Jeff Weir – a local of Galactic North up there in Windy Wellington, New Zealand – is more volatile than INDIRECT and more random than RAND. In fact, his state of mind can be pretty much summed up by this:
=NOT(EVEN(PROPER(OR(RIGHT(TODAY())))))
That’s right, pure #VALUE!
Find out more at http:www.heavydutydecisions.co.nz
14 Responses to “How to Add your Macros to QAT or Excel toolbars?”
We have only just got excel 2007 so this is helping me navigate my way through the differences cheers.
For Macro's i always add a Command Button, rename it something obvious, change the colour of it and finally add the following to its View Code section.
Application.Run "MAcro1"
This way anyone opening the file knows what to do if i ever win the lottery and dont make it in 🙂
Hi,
Good article. But I have this problem.
1) Customized QAT with a macro. Macro name = MacroX
2) Runs OK from original location (e.g. C:\TestLoaction1\TestFile.xls)
3) Copy past file to new location (e.g. C:\TestLoaction2\TestFile.xls)
Menu button now fails:
Cannot run the macro "C:\TestLoaction1\TestFile.xls'!MacroX' The macro may not be available in this workbook...
Of course the code is there, and macros are enabled.
Could get it to work after deleting and recreating macro custom buttons. So have to re-assign macro to QAT button every time I move the file?
If I put a form button on he worksheet and assign the macro to that, it's location independent.
Any ideas?
Thanks
@Ron
What you have said is correct
Macros within a worksheet are stored within the worksheet and hence follow it.
Macros referenced by a button in the QAT or elsewhere are locaed in a file and if that file is moved the linkages don't follow.
The easiest way around this is to store all your macros in a location that doesn't move and is in fact reloaded everytime that Excel starts and that is called the Personal.xlsx/b file.
These are refered to several time at Chandoo.org or have a read of
http://www.rondebruin.nl/personal.htm
or
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/deploy-your-excel-macros-from-a-central-file-HA001087296.aspx
In Excel 2003 and prior versions, a button added to the Toolbar maintained a DYNAMIC link to the file (e.g. Personal.xlsb) holding the assigned macro, such that if the file was relocated for any reason (by using Excel's native Save As command rather than just moving it via Windows Explorer), the link between the button and the file was updated.
I expected the same to occur with Excel 2007+, but alas, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have removed another feature useful to advanced users (just as they did by removing the ability to design your own buttons)!!
So having just done some reorganisation of my files, I now have to remove and recreate every friggin macro button on my QAT (I have lots) - what a pain in the proverbial!!
Hi Hui,
Thanks for the help, that's really useful.
1) The macros I'm adding are for one specific Excel application, so I really wanted the macros to follow the file
2) I didn't want to have to pass other files around too and have users installing those - either Personal.xlsx/b or as an Add-In.
3) I realise now that the QAT additions will appear for other Excel workbooks in which I don't want the macros available.
So, it looks like I need to keep it local, by using a button on the worksheet. Unless you can suggest any way of adding to menus just for a specific workbook.
Thanks again for your help. Great site, so I'll be signing up for the emails.
Ron
I know I'm a little late jumping on this post, but wondering if anyone knows how to add a UDF to the QAT? I've saved my UDF in my personal workbook, but it does not show up in my list when I choose Macros when customizing my QAT. Suggestions? Thanks!!
@Cheryl: UDFs cannot be accessed like Macros. You can use them from other macros or from worksheet cells as formulas...
@David: If you save your macros file and then install it as an add-in then it will be always available for you.
The instructions work great when you are creating a new file, and it is still open. I find that I can't access macros after I've saved a file as an xlam and closed it. When I reopen the xlam, either by browsing to it, or by having it set to open as an addin using Excel Options, the macros are no longer available in the macros list when I go to edit the QAT. Any way around that?
[...] Add this macro as a button to Quick Access Toolbar [...]
I need to create a button that will run a macro. Once you click the button it needs to open up a browser asking you to select a report/file. Once you select the file, it will run the macro on the selected file and then save it as a new report with a name and the current date. I created the macro to sort/modify the report but I do not know how to do what I mentioned above. I hope this makes sense.
I'm having trouble adding a macro to the QAT. I've done everything up to step 5 but my macro isn't showing up. What am I doing wrong?
[...] Add Macros to Quick Access Toolbar (works in Excel 2003 & above) [...]
Hi,
Thank you for the explanation. Very useful for a recent switcher from office 2003 to office 2010.
My follow-up question is: in Excel (or ppt) 2010, can you customize the macro button that you put in the QAT?
In office 2003, once you chose the custom button for your Macro, you could then edit pixel by pixel the said button.
For instance, I've created 2 Macros in PPT that are converting all my slides to either English or French language, so I'd like one button to show EN and the other FR... that would be more meaningful that any of the possible "custom" office 2010 buttons
I read all the post and one important aspect to the QAT was never mentioned. That is, you have a macro driven worksheet that you want to share with other. You have customized the QAT with two icons to run the macros (VBA programs in reality). However, when the others receive the workbook, the icons are no where to be found. It's my understanding those "customized buttons" have been saved to an outside file, Excel.qat. QUESTION: Could one simply attach that file to your email, along with the worksheet, and tell the recipients to copy that file to correct location on their computer - C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office|\
Would the customize macro buttons then appear in the worksheet and, more importantly, work? Thanks for your thoughtfulness and thanks for well written instructions Chandoo!
MortW