Spreadsheet Models for Managers

Demonstrations for Session 15
Spreadsheet Tools for Managers

Updating Templates (2000-4) or (2007+)

[Sheet: Example]

In this example, we add a "front end" to the template updater illustrated in the class notes. The template updater takes two arguments: the old workbook, and the new workbook. So our "front end" must accomplish several things:

• Ask the user for the path to the old workbook.
• Ask the user for the path to the new workbook.
• Open both workbooks.
• Invoke the updater macro.

In addition, users have been known to change their minds. So after we ask for the pathname to a workbook, the user can sometimes click "Cancel". When this happens, the macro should exit.

We saw in an earlier example how to ask for a pathname. So we use exactly that approach in our macro. Open the demonstration workbook and examine the Examples module to see how it works. If the user clicks "Cancel" the method GetOpenFilename returns false. So if that happens, we exit.

Once we have the pathnames, we open the workbooks with the Add method, and since it returns the workbook it opens as a value, we just pass those values to the macro CopyData.

Much of this can seem mysterious. Understanding all these details requires knowledge that is beyond the scope of this course, but it's readily available in the references.