Show pop-up calendar upon right click [Excel VBA]

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This is a guest post by Vijay, our in-house VBA Expert.

There are times when we are entering dates into several columns and would like to select a date from a popup calendar instead of manually typing.

Today, lets understand how we can set up a pop-up calendar in Excel so that your users can easily input dates by right clicking on a cell and inserting a date.

Keep in mind:

1. This code is only supported on the 32-Bit versions of Excel.
2. You need to have admin rights to be able to install the ActiveX Control

First, take a look at pop-up calendar

Here is a short demo of how our pop-up calendar behaves.

right_click_context_menu_example

What we need to do this

1. Design user form that contains our calendar.
2. Create a Data Table
3. Put some VBA code to get this done

Design user form that contains our calendar.

First let’s design the user form, so start up Excel and bring up the Visual Basic editor and add an user form in the project.

We would need the Microsoft Date and Time Picker control for this project, so please ensure that you have the required file available on your system. If it is not available you may download the MSCOMCT2.OCX from this link.

http://activex.microsoft.com/controls/vb6/mscomct2.cab

Installing this file is pretty simple, you need to extract the contents form the CAB file and then copy this into your System32 folder and then register using the REGSVR32 utility.

If you are using Windows 7 or above you would need to copy this file into the SysWOW64 folder and then register.

For Windows 7 and above, please make sure you are running the Command Prompt (Admin) to be able to successfully register the ActiveX control.

Windows 7: Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt (right click and choose Run as Administrator
Windows 8: Windows Key + X, then choose Command Prompt (Admin)

command_prompt_example

Okay, let’s get back to designing the user form.
Insert a new Userfrom on the VBA project and then click on Addition Controls on the Tools menu.
additional_controls
Once the Additional controls dialog box is on the screen, locate the above highlighted entry and then select the same by clicking the box on the left. Now click Ok to close this dialog box.
Now place one Monthview control on the userform and one Command button.
Below are the properties that we need to change for the Commandbutton
• Caption = “Close”
• Cancel = True
• Name = cmdClose
Place this command button anywhere you like on the userfrom, we will place the Monthview on top of this to avoid show this to the user.
Since we have specified the Cancel = True for the commandbutton, the click event can be triggered by pressing the Escape key to handle the code that we will write for the Close button.

Now place the Monthview control as show in the picture below
userform

We are done designing the Userform, now we need to write the code to handle the events.
Below is the code
Close Button

Private Sub cmdClose_Click()
Unload Me
End Sub

Userfrom

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
'matching the date in the calendar with the date of the active cell
'if there is a date,
If IsDate(ActiveCell.Value) Then
Me.MonthView1.Value = ActiveCell.Value
Else
Me.MonthView1.Value = Now
End If
End Sub

Private Sub MonthView1_DateClick(ByVal DateClicked As Date)
On Error Resume Next
Dim cell As Object
For Each cell In Selection.Cells
cell.Value = DateClicked
Next cell
Unload Me
End Sub

What the above code does?

1. The close button code will simply unload the userform and take it off the screen.
2. The userform initialize event code will check if the current cell on which we are right clicking the mouse contains any date, if there is a date then it will set the date on the calendar as the one on the cell, otherwise it will show today’s date.
3. The dateclick event of the Monthview control occurs when we click on any date, this code is responsible for populating the cell with the date we have selected. If there are multiple cells selected the code will populate all of them with the date selected.

Adding the context menu option

Now comes the interesting part of adding the context menu option, one thing I would like to specify here as the name suggests “Context menu” these options change depending on what and where we are right clicking the mouse. You will see a different context menu when you right click on a cell, table, shape etc. as shown in the example below
sample_right_click_context_menu

Since every object has a different type of context menu associated we need to make site we are adding our option to the right place.
I would recommend reading this article to know more about the types of commandbars available and how to use them. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa141001(v=office.10).aspx

Also this link provides a list of available names http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/525939-visual-basic-applications-list-available-commandbars-excel-2010-a.html

We wanted to add the right click context option to a data table which is called as “List Range Popup”.

Create a Data Table

Type the heading in Cells
B2 = ID
C2 = Start Date
D2 = End Date
E2 = Name

Now click on cell B2, and press CTRL + T shortcut from the keyboard. Make sure to select the option My Table has headers and then click Ok.

We would need the add the below code to the Open event of our workbook so that this option is available to us every time we need to work here.


Private Sub Workbook_Open()
On Error Resume Next
Dim NewControl As CommandBarControl
Application.OnKey "+^{C}", "Module1.OpenCalendar"
Application.CommandBars("List Range Popup").Controls("Insert Date").Delete
Set NewControl = Application.CommandBars("List Range Popup").Controls.Add(Before:=1)
With NewControl
.Caption = "Insert Date"
.OnAction = "Module1.OpenCalendar"
.BeginGroup = True
End With
End Sub

We have also assigned a shortcut key of CTRL + SHIFT + C to this, for those who love to work more using the keyboard.

The above code will add the “Insert Date” context menu option to our data table(s) in the active workbook whenever we open this file.

Next is cleanup
We need to make sure that the context menu we have added is also removed when the file is close, the below code will do that for us.

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
On Error Resume Next
Application.OnKey "+^{C}"
Application.CommandBars("List Range Popup").Controls("Insert Date").Delete
End Sub

Note: I have seen the project code left over in the VBA project explorer even after we have close this file, and did some research on the same. The common reason for this is having some COM addins installed. Please share if you also run into this issue and if you were able to find any other reasons or ways to eliminate this issue.

Download Demo File


Click here to download the demo file
& use it to understand this technique.

What about you? Do you use them often? Please share your experiences, techniques & ideas using comments.

If you are new to VBA, Excel macros, go thru these links to learn more.

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.

Click here to learn more about VBA Classes & join us.

About Vijay

Vijay (many of you know him from VBA Classes), joined chandoo.org full-time this February. He will be writing more often on using VBA, data analysis on our blog. Also, Vijay will be helping us with consulting & training programs. You can email Vijay at sharma.vijay1 @ gmail.com. If you like this post, say thanks to Vijay.

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49 Responses to “Interactive Pivot Table Calendar & Chart in Excel!”

  1. Saran says:

    Excellent post again from awesome chandoo.org

    This is one of the post to evident, without using macros we can create excellent charts using available excel options.

    Slicer is one of the useful option in excel 2010 .. excited to see more options in excel 2013.

    Regards,
    Saran
    http://www.lostinexcel.blogspot.com

  2. Pavi says:

    Nice one chandoo............... great work done.....

  3. Luke M says:

    Cool article. Only downside was that I didn't see at first that I needed 2010. Guess I still have to wait awhile before getting to try this out myself.

  4. Jason says:

    I consider myself an Excel expert, but you constantly amaze me with posts like this.  Fantastic calendar!

  5. Kevin says:

    Good post, like this little trick!!
    How to not show the value in the cell
    format the cell to custom with the below
    ;;;

  6. parsnip says:

    Could you add lists of holidays to be transferred to the calendar days?
    Two lists would be needed: 1) for the holidays that stay fixed (eg, CHristmas), and 2) for the holidays that move around (eg, Thanksgiving).
    Such lists would be prepared externally, and the program would transfer their information to the appropriate days.

  7. Wow! This is something amazing. I am going to do some practicals with this and show a sales trend on this. As we have our sales plans weekly basis, this should impress by boss when put in dashboard. Cool.

    And thanks1

  8. John H says:

    Chandoo you have a knack of getting on to these great looking very creative ideas! 

    One thing with calendars I have seen before is not catering for able to enter notes or appointments or project milestones.  But with this one it's easy enough to add the extra lines as you have done for the chart concept and link to this other type of info.

    For 2003 we could replace slicers with a validation style dropdown couldn't we?
     

  9. Jitto says:

    Chandoo, you are awesome;)  i was using calender to show my reports, but i had made all months and then underneith date shows the value, man its really awesome . i am going to use this format for my reports.. only draw back for me is i am using 2007. hence no slicer.. may be have to modify with out slicer.

  10. Mawdo81 says:

    Why not use =weeknum() for the weeknum column?

  11. 3G says:

    Great tricks! I love trying to reproduce the charts myself to get the hang of 'em. This one was great.

    My only issue is getting the VBA in the year object to refresh the data. I used the VBA provided at the link, and, I can see it in the Macros tab, but, when I click the spinner the data does not update. Any tips?

    Thx!
    3G

  12. Vaughan says:

    Just started at chandoo - this is great!

    I opted to use the formula  =IF(F6>F5,G5,G5+1) for my weeknum - worked for me (I didn't get all the way through the example, since I'm running Excel 2007 - so don't know if that'll affect anything later in the example). I'm open to comments on this alternative approach.

    Thanks for creating this website!

    VC (Excel student).
     

  13. Jordan Goldmeier says:

    Very cool - but now I'm even more excited for the new time controls for Excel 2013!

  14. shanmughan says:

    Great calendar... 

    I wonder whether we can make a school calendar (Class, subjects, teachers) using this calendar, assuming the weekly plan is duplicated across the year.

     

    • Jan Halliday says:

      I would love to be a part of creating a class schedule...I'm attempting to help a friend (gratis) to do just that - can you point me in the right direction or provide a sample of sorts?

  15. [...] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. [...]

  16. Jiakun says:

    Hello Chandoo,

    Great works! I learn a lot from this website. Here is the problem I met when I follow your tutorial: once I run and save this cool pivot calendar chart , the size of excel file will increase every time. Could you let me know how to figure it out? Thank you for your time in advance.

    An excel chart-fan from China. 

  17. Rob says:

    wow, love the calendar, i'm a newbie, found this site and it's amazing.

    Got it mostly figured out, but could do with help with your named range 'tblchosen'

    I can build the pivots, link the calendars together but can't see how to use index(tblchosen...) to pull through the productivity figures 

    appreciate any help

    thanks 

  18. Ninad says:

    Great. Miss the Today button.  Will try and figure a way to add this to the file.

  19. Mike says:

    I want to start the week on Monday, not Sunday (MTWTFSS).  Re-arranging the calendar tab works however, any month where the 1st is a Sunday starts on the second and totally omits Sun 1.  I have been tinkerign for a while, but can't seem to figure this out.

    • Mike says:

      Changing F2 on the 'Calcs' tab to 2 so that the week starts on Monday works.

      Cutting & pasting Sunday on the 'Pivot Calendar' tab and moving all cells up 1 row works.

      However, using April 2013 for example, you lose the 1st off of the pivot calendar so that the month starts on 2 April. What should happen is the first row should only show Sun 1 April and then the next row starts Mon 2 April. Still can't fugure out where the problem lies.

      • Mike says:

        "Further Enhancements:

        Adjust week start to Monday: Likewise, you can modify your formulas to adjust weekstart to Monday or any other day you fancy."

        I have tinkered with this previously with no success, does anyone know which formulas require tinkering, I have only succeeded in breaking this in an effort start a week on a Monday.

  20. [...] Interactivo    Artículo original var dd_offset_from_content = 50; var dd_top_offset_from_content = 0; Tags: 2013, calendario, [...]

  21. Jeroen says:

    Completely off topic, but how do you create those animated pictures in your tutorials? It is not a movie (like the Youtube movie), so what software do you use to create such high quality "animated" pictires? Thanks

  22. James says:

    This is fairly easy to do just using calendar formulas, which would be quicker, and doesn't need VBA? Am I missing something?

  23. [...] on how to generate an interactive calendar using pivot tables. Please check out Chandoo’s Interactive Pivot Table Calendar & Chart in Excel before reading this, as I want to go through how I used his method to adapt a calendar which was [...]

  24. FK says:

    Great tip shared by you... howevr would appreciate if you could mention in your tricks about excel version. The example above would work only in excel 2010 and above I believe. Please help me if there is any way we can use the tip in excel 2007 as well..
     
    Many Thanks,
    Regards,
    FK

  25. swissfish says:

    Hi, I'm going to give this a shot, but one small question before I do. Can a linked cell be updated based on the date that is selected from the calendar? The calendar is really cool and this would make is especially good to use (and easy and fast).
    Regards,
    swissfish.

  26. ElliJ says:

    This post is awesome, and using your instructions, I was able to get this to work with a pivot table that pulls directly from a Project Server database. It was a bit complicated to get the day to sum correctly, but I managed to finagle it. I hope you don't mind if I link back to you when I post my instructions.

    Thanks for giving me a starting point for this!

  27. Seb says:

    This is great, and pretty much everything I was looking for.

    However, I already have a large spreadsheet, and I want to include your worksheets in it. I copied all the worksheets and the Module 1, but I can't get it to work. What else do I need to transfer / update please?

  28. marycmjd says:

    Hello there, is it possible to use this pivot to produce a calendar style chart, with returns multiple data per date, which on the calendar then, when clicked links to the data to provide more background information? What do you think? I'd love if I could pivot when i need. thanks, m

  29. Andrew says:

    This is amazing and will work well for my calendar project! My question is, how can I expand the calendar to fit a standard sheet of paper?

  30. Paula says:

    Wow - this is so creative. I'm taking the basic idea and building a reservation calendar.
    Question: How do you get the month and year slicers on a different page than the pivot tables? I'd like to have my final calendar on a separate page from the pivot.

  31. Mack says:

    This is perfect...is there a way to add notes/tasks to the individual days?

  32. Jennifer says:

    Excel will not let me insert blank rows between lines in the pivot table. I am use Excel 2013 - is there a pivot table tools command that must be used?

    I can create the pivot table calender with a year spinner & month slicer but I do not see how to display the the attendance information that I have in the original data table.

    Thank you for the wonderful post and I am sorry for my lack of understanding...

  33. Christopher says:

    Excellent!

    Please show me how to add an alternative calendar to this calendar, Chinese or lunar calendar (and by lunar I don't mean phases of the moon), like what they still use in Asia

    Thanks
    Christopher

  34. […] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. […]

  35. A.Maurizio says:

    Hello my name is Maurice, excuse me for my further request, but believe me, without your help priprio not know how to solve this problem.
    So: always using a chart positioned on an excel sheet I wanted to match each square (series) to a single cell, to create a perpetual calendar.
    Now everything works fine; except that for a fact, and it is this: In the calendar as you well know some numbers may not be apparent until certain conditions, which I solved by writing this "= O code (AA5 = DATE ( $ H $ 1; MONTH ($ AD $ 12) +1; 1)) and the game and done.
    Now I would like to achieve the same thing using the Chart; How can I do to make this happen! let me also just a practical example so that I can understand all the rest then I'll do; Thanks Greetings from A.Maurizio

    Link Program : Link: https://app.box.com/s/lhqva3eji0xcf2nmk8lxyki88tt1mi5t

  36. Ileana Dentremont says:

    Great info, thanks for sharing

  37. Mike Deryck says:

    Hi,

    I love your calendar however I am modifying it for use in displaying employee performance metrics on a day by day basis.
    I see where tblChosen and tblDates are named ranges however I cannot find them anywhere.
    Are they assigned to specific cells because I cannot tell.
    I see both of them in the Name Manager, which tells me what they refer to but does not give a value or cell location.

    • Hui... says:

      @Mike
      With the Names in the Name Manager
      Simply select the name
      Then click in the Refers To: box at the Bottom
      Excel will take you to where the Named Range is referring to

  38. […] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. […]

  39. Nelson says:

    Hi, Chandoo
    This Pivot Calendar is an excellent idea. I’ve done one for myself using your guidelines. I just need something I’m not being able to do. I need that when I open the file the default date is set to today’s date. I know how to do it with conditional formatting. But I think I’ll need some vba coding for this. Can you please help me with this. Thanks in advance

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