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How SKYXCEL Makes Excel User-Friendly

Updated: Mar 20, 2020

Excel can be very overwhelming at times with all the various tools Excel has to offer. At SKYXCEL we provide our clients spreadsheets that remove all the time consuming hassles of creating complex formulas, graphical reports, conditional formatting, data validation and VBA scripts. Our goal is to transform Excel into a custom built application that looks and performs just the way you want it to without having to manually create the complicated functionality of your spreadsheet.


FORM CONTROLS

Form controls are very useful and convenient when bringing a custom built Excel dashboard to life due to their ability to initiate certain tasks or marcos. These form controls include buttons, drop down lists, check boxes and scroll bars. Initially, these form controls do not do anything until we assign macros to each of them to activate VBA scripts. So instead of users having to search through the ribbon to apply certain formatting, sort columns, delete rows, view certain data, etc., SKYXCEL enables the user to perform all those tasks and so much more with a click of a button utilizing form controls and VBA.





USERFORMS

UserForms are incredibly critical for creating a user-friendly Excel spreadsheet because they provide a sense of guidance, so that users can easily execute the correct tasks without having to directly mess with the actual cells of the spreadsheet. By combining form controls and UserForms, we make it very easy for users to fill or select the correct data that needs to be inserted into their spreadsheet. This allows us to create a more simplified experience for users, while still having a complex VBA script run in the back-end to perform specific tasks.


CONDITIONAL FORMATTING

Conditional formatting allows you to automatically apply formatting such as colors, icons, and data bars to one or more cells based on the cell value. This provides another way to visualize data and make spreadsheets easier to understand. Excel can be very cluttered at times, especially when dealing with large amounts of data. If there is an opportunity to apply conditional formatting, SKYXCEL does it! We want our clients to easily and quickly see all the key factors they are looking for without manually having to highlight cells. This type of automation saves massive amounts of time, keeps spreadsheets organized and minimizes user errors.


DATA VALIDATION

Data validation is a feature in Excel used to control what a user can enter into a cell. For example, you could use data validation to make sure a value is a number between 1 and 10, make sure a text entry is less than 25 characters or select certain values from a drop down list. At SKYXCEL we like to apply data validation because it keeps consistency throughout the spreadsheet. Letting users manually enter whatever they want into cells highly raises the chances of typos or errors which can jeopardize reporting accuracy.


VISUAL BASIC for APPLICATIONS (VBA)


Excel VBA is the programming language for Excel and all the other Microsoft Office programs. VBA is all about automation and optimizing your time in Excel. We all know how tedious and time consuming Excel can be, that is why we apply VBA in almost every one of our projects. Majority of the manual process you do in Excel can be automated. If you try to adjust a csv file to only see certain columns, filter out specific data, highlight individual cells, add formulas and sort fields, that whole process could take hours! With VBA, SKYXCEL can make all that happen in seconds with a click of a button. VBA allows us to get creative with performing tasks clients want automatically while saving so much time, minimize errors and keep consistency.


PROTECTED SHEETS

We implement cell, worksheet and workbook protection on all of our spreadsheets we make for our clients to prevent users accidentally damaging the functionality of the spreadsheet. A complex spreadsheet has numerous formulas referencing multiple cells and if something happens to disrupt the communication between the formulas your spreadsheet will be filled with errors or inaccurate data. To figure out where the error occurred can be quite challenging and time consuming. We want our clients to have the freedom to click around their spreadsheets without having to stress about messing something up. This provides insurance that you will obtain a spreadsheet that functions properly and have the confidence to let other Excel users to try it out without worrying something might happen to the integrity of the spreadsheet.


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1 Comment


cbrad
Mar 08, 2020

Very nice and helpful post.

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