Do you have an Excel report or graphs that need to be emailed to various people every month? We can use Excel automation features to do this task quite easily.
The inspiration – A client request for Excel Email Solution
The idea for this came from a recent project I did for a client. They wanted me to build an Excel workbook which shows latest sales summary and then allows them to email the snapshot to the relevant people in one click.
Here is a snapshot of the solution I created for them (with dummy data):
- You select a product and see the dynamic report
- Pick the person who will receive the report (from drop-down list)
- Click on the “Send email” button to send the email
The ingredients – What we need
Here, I am using 3 main ingredients.
- A report created in Excel 365
- Office Scripts to generate the email contents and trigger the mail process
- Power Automate flow to send the email
Below is a schematic of the whole process.
The Recipe – How to send emails from Excel
The actual recipe is a bit detailed and harder to explain in text only format. So I made a video with the whole thing. Watch it here or on my YouTube channel. I have included the key steps as text below too.
Scripts & Instructions:
We can send either text or images as the email. In our case, I have both text content and images. The images come from a grouped object named Group 5.
GenerateReport Script:
Go to your “Automate” ribbon in Excel and click on “New Script” button.
In the script window, paste below script and customize the names as needed (refer to the video for explanation on the script).
function main(workbook: ExcelScript.Workbook):myOutput {
// Your code here
let ws = workbook.getWorksheet("Report");
let repGroup = ws.getShape("Group 5");
const repImage = repGroup.getImageAsBase64(ExcelScript.PictureFormat.png);
const emailSubject = ws.getRange("c2").getText();
const sendTo = ws.getRange("I22").getText();
console.log(emailSubject);
console.log(sendTo);
return {repImage,emailSubject,sendTo};
}
interface myOutput {
repImage: string;
emailSubject: string;
sendTo: string;
}
Set up the Power Automate Flow
- Go to Power Automate website and login with your credentials
- Create a new instant cloud flow
- Set the trigger as “When HTTP request is received”
- Add “Run Script” step in Excel
- Add Send an email (v2) step
- Set up the flow as depicted below.
Obtain the Trigger URL
- Save your flow
- Now go back the “trigger” step (step 1 of your flow)
- Make sure you set the method to GET
- Expand and copy the URL.
Back to Excel to make one more Script
We are nearly done. We just need to add one more script & a button in our sales report so that we can initiate the flow from Excel.
Add one more script in Excel and use the below code.
function main(workbook: ExcelScript.Workbook) {
// Your code here
const triggerURL = "___YOUR TRIGGER URL___";
let request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.open("GET", triggerURL, false);
request.send(null);
}
- Save your script.
- From “Code Editor” click on the options menu for your script and use the “Add Button” to add a button on Excel worksheet.
- Whenever you click on this button, your flow will start.
Other ways to Automate this:
We can also use VBA to create & send emails automatically. I have previously written about that approach too. Read this article for VBA Excel Email Sender.
VBA vs. Office Script approach – which is better?
Both technologies offer automation. I have summarized the pros & cons of each technology below.
As of 2023 March, my preference is to use VBA for things like Email automation as it is easy to control and deploy.
VBA
VBA Pros:
- Works in any version of Excel
- Easy to learn, easy to code
- Lots of help & resources
- Very old and stable language base
- Works with Excel, Office & Windows Objects & API
VBA Cons:
- Can't use with Web / Mobile version of Excel
- Not easy to integrate with Cloud platforms (Power Automate, Sharepoint etc.)
- Security problems
Office Script
Office Script Pros:
- Works on Web / Mobile versions too
- Integrates with cloud platforms (Power Automate etc.)
- Future ready technology
Office Script Cons:
- No easy help or resources
- Hard language to learn and master
- Doesn't work in older versions of Excel
- Can't use all objects of Excel. Will not work with Windows API etc. too
- Needs costly subscription plans to use
- Runs on server, thus no control and susceptible to downtimes etc.
Thanks to Mark Proctor
I got the idea for URL trigger from Mark Proctor. Thanks Mark for the fantastic work 🙂
Got questions?
Do you have any questions reg. this implementation. Post a comment so that our community can help you.
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
[...] link Leave a Reply [...]
Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
[…] Grouping smaller slices in pie chart […]
Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?