volunteered for a dumb thing

[unclescrooge]

hi, i volunteered to create an app to write to an excel spreadsheet for my office. trouble is that i can't use vb, it'll be hosted on a networked drive without any scripting support or php, or anything else.

i guess i'll have to learn java because that's all my company supports. does anyone have any ideas how i can find a tutorial on java writing to an excel file?

i can't use access and i'm not about to learn how to write an app to hook up to our mongo oracle db. i know next to nothing about java but i guess i'd better take the crash course. suggestions where to start? i tried sun but surprise that they don't support excel.

[Candyman]

Google tells me this might help (assuming you're dedicated to the Java approach):
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2001-06/04-qa-0629-excel.html
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2001-08/02-qa-0824-excel2.html
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2002-05/01-qa-0503-excel3.html

Good luck!

[wh666-666]

So VB compiled as an exe wont work? Just from personal experience ive found VB far easier to get the hang of than java. Plus with VB you can get additions like slice and dice and templates to make it easier and a bit less daunting.

What does the app actually have to do? How complex does it need to be? Wouldnt a simple export function work and specify an xls and fields for the data to be written to?

[unclescrooge]

thanks. this is just a ticket logging system for our department.

it's supposed to be just a means to see which partners that we deal with have a higher rate of nonresolution of problems, what those problems are.

i had the silly thing written in php/mysql and hosted on my server but was informed by upper mgmnt that it would have to move to our intranet and the intranet does not support either, nor cgi/perl, only java.

so my boss said to try it as an app. i guess i can create a c++ app to create a comma delimited flat file and then build an excel macro to import the data.

someone smack me..i'm an idiot for volunteering for this.

[rock]

This might be overkill, but what about Visual Studio Tools for Office? Then you can write VB.NET combined with an Excel workbook. More powerful than anything you could do in Java, and fairly straightforward to deploy. I just wrote a 20+ white paper on this for work for our .net product and have lots of links if you need them. Of course, you need VS 2005 Team Edition to consider this path.

[coop_2000]

so my boss said to try it as an app. i guess i can create a c++ app to create a comma delimited flat file and then build an excel macro to import the data.

someone smack me..i'm an idiot for volunteering for this.

Seems like you just want some metrics reports. I'd double check to see if you don't have reporting capabilities already. If not, maybe it would be worth it to invest in a 3rd party reporting program like crystal reports, business analytics, etc.

As for writing a c++ app, you'd still have to write code connect to the database, which you should be able to do in Excel, so you could just cut out the middle-man to make the programming, set-up, and automation easier:

Excel VBA macro:
open database, copy x records based on query, close database, process, email results, etc

batch file:
run Excel VBA macro

scheduling utility:
run batch file every day at 12am

Oh and try not to use commas as delimiters: use pipes ("|") instead if you can.. If someone throws a comma within the data, you're screwed.

Lastly, just like in the military...and likewise my advice for folks when I left my last gig: "Don't volunteer for anything" :D

[unclescrooge]

"don't volunteer for anything"

i couldn't have said it better myself.

from the way this is looking after talking to our net admins, i don't even think that i can write this as an app due to the restrictions on our system. our infrastructure vp will give his final decree tomorrow. this oughta be fun.

i wrote this thing today in php/mysql and told my boss that what out net admins don't know won't hurt us.

[coop_2000]

Yeah, red tape is always fun. If your company is that focused towards following procedure, I'm surprised that they have an Oracle installation without any reporting mechanisms. Kinda like having a boat with no oars. :eek:

[unclescrooge]

well we do have the reporting mechanism but the oracle installation is not for my department. what we do is weird and the oracle install is meant for the day to day business transactions.

what we are trying to keep track of is completely different and thus does not qualify for "company resources" like a spot on the web server, diminished security settings to run macros that i create, or anything else for that matter.

i am not sure what this all means in english other than our net admins rule the roost and folks like little ol' me, who create solutions, are stuck trying to get around these walls to get things to work.

[Adisharr]

Well at least it could be an interesting learning experience :)

[coop_2000]

Ah so it's more politics.. guess you could always take em out to lunch and see if you can get on their good side :D