In the 22nd session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets do some macros.
What is in this session?
VBA (or macros, automation) is a mystery for many of us. So in this podcast, lets unravel the mystery behind it and get you started with the awesome world of automation.
In this podcast, you will learn,
- What is a macro?
- What is VBA then?
- Reasons for using VBA Macros
- Automation
- Extending Excel’s capabilities
- Efficiency
- Applications
- How to get started with VBA Macros?
- Using Recorder
- Example Macro
- Going beyond recorder – Learning VBA
Listen to this session
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Links & Resources for learning VBA Macros:
Getting started with VBA Macros – FREE 5 part crash course
- What is VBA & Writing your First VBA Macro in Excel
- Understanding Variables, Conditions & Loops in VBA
- Using Cells, Ranges & Other Objects in your Macros
- Putting it all together – Your First VBA Application using Excel
- My Top 10 Tips for Mastering VBA & Excel Macros
More tips, information, tutorials & resources on VBA.
VBA Example Macros
VBA Video tutorials
Books for learning VBA
- Excel 2010 Power Programming by John Walkenbach
- Excel VBA for dummies by John Walkenbach
- More recommended books on VBA
Recommended training program
Learn from basics to advanced VBA in a self-paced, on-demand online training from me. With more than 24 hrs of video training material, 50 lessons, 50 example macro workbooks, home work exercises, 2 class projects and an online community, you can quickly learn ways to automate your work & save time.
Please click here to know more about this program.
Transcript of this session:
Download this podcast transcript [PDF].
Are you new to VBA? What is stopping you from learning it?
When I first heard about VBA, I was not very interested (as explained in the podcast). But later when I got a job, I realized the potential of VBA and quickly embraced it.
What about you? Are you a VBA newbie? What is stopping you from learning it? Please share your fears and difficulties in the comments so that I can help you.
8 Responses to “Pivot Tables from large data-sets – 5 examples”
Do you have links to any sites that can provide free, large, test data sets. Both large in diversity and large in total number of rows.
Good question Ron. I suggest checking out kaggle.com, data.world or create your own with randbetween(). You can also get a complex business data-set from Microsoft Power BI website. It is contoso retail data.
Hi Chandoo,
I work with large data sets all the time (80-200MB files with 100Ks of rows and 20-40 columns) and I've taken a few steps to reduce the size (20-60MB) so they can better shared and work more quickly. These steps include: creating custom calculations in the pivot instead of having additional data columns, deleting the data tab and saving as an xlsb. I've even tried indexmatch instead of vlookup--although I'm not sure that saved much. Are there any other tricks to further reduce the file size? thanks, Steve
Hi Steve,
Good tips on how to reduce the file size and / or process time. Another thing I would definitely try is to use Data Model to load the data rather than keep it in the file. You would be,
1. connect to source data file thru Power Query
2. filter away any columns / rows that are not needed
3. load the data to model
4. make pivots from it
This would reduce the file size while providing all the answers you need.
Give it a try. See this video for some help - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u7bpysO3FQ
Normally when Excel processes data it utilizes all four cores on a processor. Is it true that Excel reduces to only using two cores When calculating tables? Same issue if there were two cores present, it would reduce to one in a table?
I ask because, I have personally noticed when i use tables the data is much slower than if I would have filtered it. I like tables for obvious reasons when working with datasets. Is this true.
John:
I don't know if it is true that Excel Table processing only uses 2 threads/cores, but it is entirely possible. The program has to be enabled to handle multiple parallel threads. Excel Lists/Tables were added long ago, at a time when 2 processes was a reasonable upper limit. And, it could be that there simply is no way to program table processing to use more than 2 threads at a time...
When I've got a large data set, I will set my Excel priority to High thru Task Manager to allow it to use more available processing. Never use RealTime priority or you're completely locked up until Excel finishes.
That is a good tip Jen...