Microsoft Excel. Unlock insights and tell the story in your data.

This one-day introductory course assumes no prior programming knowledge, and builds a solid foundation of the skills and knowledge required to learn to read and write industrial VBA code in Microsoft Excel. You will gain an understanding of the background knowledge (and more) a programmer should have, in order to successfully learn to program Excel VBA macros and functions.

It is recommended you complete this course prior to attending the three-day Microsoft Excel VBA Course: Masterclass if you are:

• a self-taught programmer (including VBA)
• a non-programmer
• experienced in programming languages other than VBA.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• discuss the elements of human logic manifest in Excel’s user interface, and some of the ways those elements manifest in Excel VBA
• implement those elements in VBA functions and VBA macros for Excel
• describe the Microsoft Excel Object Model and VBA concepts
• begin to catch errors with basic debugging
• feel competent in progressing onto the three-day Microsoft Excel VBA Course: Masterclass.

Content

Human logic

• Gain an overview of the knowledge required to program in Excel VBA
• Understand the Six Requirements of Human Problem Solving
• Learn the Arithmetic Operators and their precedence in VBA
• Learn when to use the primitive/value types (variable data types) in VBA, including Variants
• Design algorithms with sequence and iteration

The VBA environment

• Understand the essentials of the Excel Developer tab
• Learn the basics of the VBA Editor
• Understand macro-less workbooks as opposed to VBA Macro (and VBA Function) enabled workbooks
• Set up trusted locations for workbooks with code you trust
• Set macro settings for workbooks you may not trust

Writing procedures

• Understand how procedures work
• Use VBA functions and VBA macros from the Excel interface
• Understand the structure of VBA code projects within a workbook
• Insert code modules
• Save your procedures in a workbook
• Use procedures (Macros and Functions) you have written in the Excel user interface

The Excel Object Model

• Gain an overview of the Excel Object Model
• Understand the purpose of Object/Type actions and values (methods and properties)

Debugging

• Learn the rudiments of basic debugging

Human logic in VBA

• Declare variables of different types
• Understand the various forms of classic VBA IF statements
• Know when to use ANDs and ORs in If Statements
• Implement the modern additions for Selection in VBA
• Implement iteration structures in VBA
• Record and edit Relative and Absolute macros and understand the difference between them
• Recognise constants and enumerations recorded in macros, and used in “code from scratch”
• Translate R1C1 Referencing Style addressing in formulas to Excel interface style addressing

Intended audience

This course is designed for the beginner VBA user.

Prerequisites

You need to have basic knowledge Microsoft Excel, ie, be able to write simple formulas and use some of the standard functions of Excel (eg Sum, Today, VLOOKUP etc).

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training in a computer lab (Windows environment)
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

Face-to-face classes

These classes run in a computer lab and you do not need to bring your own device. Please bring a USB flash drive to class if you would like to make a copy of your work or any relevant class materials. Alternatively, you can save these to a cloud storage space or email them to your personal email address. Please bring a pen.

Online classes

You will need your own device with Microsoft Excel software installed.

Materials

Course materials are distributed electronically using Dropbox.