One of my Excel School students, Rajatha, e-mailed me and asked,
I have to come up with a Birthday and Anniversary calender which would automatically send emails on the particular date, is this possible if yes then how?
My initial response was,
You can do the automated birthday / anniversary reminder using excel. Here is the basic approach:
- Record birthdays and anniversaries in a table
- Now, write a simple macro to scan the list to see which birthdays / anniversaries are on today
- For each of the matches, send an email with a pre-composed message (more on sending emails thru vba here: http://www.rondebruin.nl/sendmail.htm )
To which she came back and said,
I am not familiar with macros… is there any other way?
Well, there is.
You can use Excel to remind you about upcoming birthdays and create pre-composed messages, like above. The basic approach is like this:
- We list all the birthdays, corresponding names and email addresses in a list.
- Now, using TODAY() and IF() formulas we test if anyone’s birthday is today.
- If that is the case, we use Excel’s HYPERLINK() formula to generate a mailto hyperlink.
- Once you click on that, Excel opens your mail application (outlook or notes or whatever fancy app you are using) and loads the message.
- You just press the send button. Done!
Watch Excel Birthday Reminder – Recipe Video
Download Excel Birthday Reminder Template
Click here to download the excel birthday reminder template & play with it.
Do you use excel to keep track of birthdays etc?
Not me. I have very few close friends and I remember their birthdays. For the rest, I use facebook to get notified when their birthday is around the corner. It is unlikely that I will forget the birthdays of family members.
But, I think Excel has amazing potential to remind you about various important dates. Especially if you want to send birthday wishes to customers (or employees) from a database, Excel is good for that.
What do you think? Please share your experience & tips with us using comments. I am all ears.
Download even more templates:
Visit excel templates page to download several spreadsheet solutions & samples.
One Response to “SQL vs. Power Query – The Ultimate Comparison”
Enjoyed your SQL / Power Query podcast (A LOT). I've used SQL a little longer than Chandoo. Power Query not so much.
Today I still use SQL & VBA for my "go to" applications. While I don't pull billions of rows, I do pull millions. I agree with Chandoo about Power Query (PQ) lack of performance. I've tried to benchmark PQ to SQL and I find that a well written SQL will work much faster. Like mentioned in the podcast, my similar conclusion is that SQL is doing the filtering on the server while PQ is pulling data into the local computer and then filtering the data. I've heard about PQ query folding but I still prefer SQL.
My typical excel application will use SQL to pull data from an Enterprise DB. I load data into Structured Tables and/or Excel Power Pivot (especially if there's lot of data).
I like to have a Control Worksheet to enter parameters, display error messages and have user buttons to execute VBA. I use VBA to build/edit parameters used in the SQL. Sometimes I use parameter-based SQL. Sometimes I create a custom SQL String in a hidden worksheet that I then pull into VBA code (these may build a string of comma separated values that's used with a SQL include). Another SQL trick I like to do is tag my data with a YY-MM, YY-QTR, or YY-Week field constructed form a Transaction Date.
In an application, I like to create a dashboard(s) that may contain hyperlinks that allow the end-user to drill into data. Sometimes the hyperlink will point to worksheet and sometimes to a supporting workbook. In some cases, I use a double click VBA Macro that will pull additional data and direct the user to a supplemental worksheet or pivot table.
In recent years I like Dynamic Formulas & Lambda Functions. I find this preferable to pivot tales and slicers. I like to use a Lambda in conjunction with a cube formula to pull data from a power pivot data model. I.E. a Lambda using a cube formula to aggregate Accounting Data by a general ledger account and financial period. Rather than present info in a power pivot table, you can use this combination to easily build financial reports in a format that's familiar to Accounting Professionals.
One thing that PQ does very well is consolidating data from separate files. In the old days this was always a pain.
I've found that using SQL can be very trying (even for someone with experience). It's largely an iterative process. Start simple then use Xlookup (old days Match/Index). Once you get the relationships correct you can then use SQL joins to construct a well behaved SQL statement.
Most professional enterprise systems offer a schema that's very valuable for constructing SQL statements. For any given enterprise system there's often a community of users that will share SQL. I.E. MS Great Plains was a great source (but I haven't used them in years).
Hope this long reply has value - keep up the good work.