We have a challenge in our VBA class. Many of the students who join our VBA program have no formal programming background. They may have written a few simple programs long time ago, but most of them lack basic understanding of programming. Teaching VBA can be difficult if we do not address this problem.
So, we have added a lesson on “Introduction to Programming”. In this lesson, our aim is to introduce programming to non-programers.
Since many of you are considering to join our VBA classes, it is appropriate that we give this introduction to programming lesson as a demo lesson. Please watch it below.
Introduction to Programming lesson
What is in this lesson?
In this lesson, we will learn,
- What do the terms program and programming mean?
- Hello World Programs in VBA
- Programming Concepts – Variables
- Operators
- Conditions
- Loops
- Exception Handling
- Modularization
- Commenting
- Graphical Elements
Watch the lesson [55 Min, Part 1]:
Download the Presentation & Workbook
Click here to download the presentation slides [pdf]
Click here to download the workbook with HelloWorld example macros (you need to view code on the workbook).
To Watch the second part of this video + more on VBA:
There is more to this lesson. In Part 2 (30 more mins), we discuss various programming jargon & share tips on how to start programming.
You can get the part 2 and more lessons on VBA by joining our VBA classes.
Click here to learn more about VBA Classes & Enroll.
Please note that registrations will be closing next Friday – 20th May.
How would you introduce programming to a layman:
Please tell me how you would introduce programming to a layman, using comments. I would like to learn from your perspective.
PS: Go ahead and join our VBA Class if you want to become awesome in VBA.
PPS: Check out introduction to Excel too.
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...