Category Archives: Microsoft Excel

Apr 28

Microsoft Access Video on VBA Programming with Luke Chung at Access DevCon 2017

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FMS President Luke Chung was a presenter at the Microsoft Access DevCon 2017 in Vienna, Austria in early April.

Before giving two conference presentations, he was sat down and spoke with Philipp Stiefel of codekabinett.com of Germany. Philipp is creating a series of videos discussing VBA development.

Luke shares the history of how FMS Inc. began working with MS Access and how we now offer 12 products for the Access community, including Total Access Analyzer, Total Access Emailer, Total Visual CodeTools, and Total Visual SourceBook.

They talked about:

  • VBA Best Practices
  • How end-users migrate from Excel to Access, then learn how to code
  • Why people are hesitant to purchase third party products and how FMS overcomes that by showcasing the value we offer
  • Using tools like Total Access Analyzer to catch errors before shipping and learning best practices
  • Using the module code in Total Visual SourceBook to address problems we’ve already solved so you can focus on the unique issues in your applications
  • The value of creating consistent, quality code
  • How to improve code for developers of all backgrounds
  • Being in constant “growth” mode to look for ways to become a better developer

FMS Inc. is proud of the quality of products we have produced for the past 30 years. We are honored to continuously be regarded as a leading expert in the Access community. Thank you for supporting us and we hope you enjoy the 20 minute interview!

 

Mar 14

Create Surveys with Excel Online hosted in Office365

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excel-icon-lgYou can quickly create surveys with Excel and make them available online with all results saved in the spreadsheet hosted in Office365. Just create an Excel spreadsheet in Office365 and choose the Survey item on the ribbon to design it.

A link is provided to share with people to respond. They don’t need to have Excel or Office365. Just a web browser. Try our sample by clicking the image below:

survey

Shorten the URL

Excel provides a very long URL to share your survey. By using a site like bit.ly, you can create a shorter one to email to your contacts. This is important to avoid problems when URLs get word wrapped in emails. For instance, this survey is shortened to https://bit.ly/2qmSweG.

Results in Your Spreadsheet

The results go directly into your spreadsheet with each submission as a separate row:

response

Having the ability to create a survey and see the results in a spreadsheet in minutes, is a terrific tool to help your projects!

Sep 26

Free Trial Offers for Microsoft Office 365 on the Cloud

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office365Microsoft Office 365 is Microsoft’s new and popular way to license the Office products for online and desktop use. It also includes hosted Exchange for email, SharePoint, OneDrive for shared hard disk files, and the communications package Lync. The cloud based platform means Microsoft takes care of the system administration to update versions, apply security patches, monitor usage, ensure uptime and connectivity, and address hardware problems.

Let Microsoft Take Care of Exchange and Email

If you are still hosting your own Exchange Server in your facility, it’s time to consider outsourcing so Microsoft can worry about the versions, patches, hardware failures, and other maintenance chores. Microsoft will also host it in a real data center with reliable power sources, battery backups, multiple internet trunk lines, and enterprise quality physical security.

If you’re already outsourcing your email/Exchange hosting, Office 365 is a wonderful alternative and lets Microsoft deal with the challenges of keeping email up and running 24/7/365.

Includes Desktop Copies of Microsoft Office

If an option includes the Windows copies of Office, you can install on your local machine Office 2013 copies of Microsoft Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Word, Lync, and InfoPath. This lets you have both the online versions of Office and the traditional non-Internet dependent local copy.

Office 365 with SharePoint and Access Web Apps with SQL Azure

Microsoft SharePointWith Office 365, the hassles of hosting and maintaining your own SharePoint site is gone. Microsoft takes care of that for you and lets you create both private and public web sites.

Microsoft Access 2013You can also enable Access Web Apps to create simple database solutions with data automatically hosted in SQL Server (SQL Azure). The data can also be shared with other applications such as the desktop version of Microsoft Access.

Office 365 Options

There are many options based on your situation:

Free Office 365 Trials

Click on these links for free 30 day trial offers (pricing below assumes a one year commitment):

  • Office 365 Enterprise E3 Trial – 25 licenses (Details)
    E3 price is regularly $20/user/month and includes the Office desktop versions. Depending on options, prices range from $4 to $22 per user/month
  • Office 365 Small Business Premium Trial – 10 licenses (Details)
    Small Business options are limited to 25 users in the organization. Premium price is $12.50/user/month, the basic without desktop copies is $5 a month
  • Office Pro Plus Trial – 25 licenses (Details)
    This is the traditional Office on the desktop without the online services. Rather than buying the licenses upfront, Microsoft now offers the ability to pay for it on a monthly basis for $12 and install it on up to 5 machines.

microsoft-dynamicsTrial for Microsoft Dynamics

We are also pleased to extend Microsoft’s trial offer for their Dynamics CRM system

Good luck and let us know about your experiences using Office 365.

Aug 07

Microsoft Access and Office 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Enhancements and Issues

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New Paper: Microsoft Access and Office 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Enhnacements and Issues

Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Microsoft Office 2010. It includes enhancements to Access, Excel, Groove, Office. Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, SharePoint, Visio, Word, and more.

Read our new paper listing:

  • Links to the Download and List of Enhancements
  • List of Updated Products
  • Microsoft Access Enhancements and Fixes:
    • Microsoft Access Object Issues
    • Repair and Compact Issues
    • Microsoft Excel Related Issues
    • Access Web/SharePoint Issues
    • Windows 8 64-bit Issue
    • Runtime Version
  • Known Issues from Microsoft
  • A Confirmed Bug between MS Access 2010 and SharePoint 2013
  • Additional Resources for Microsoft Office and Office 2010 SP1
Apr 23

Microsoft Access versus Microsoft Excel for Data Analysis and Reporting

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Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft AccessChoosing Between
Spreadsheets and Databases

We are often asked by Microsoft Office power users whether, why, and when they should use Microsoft Access versus Microsoft Excel. Especially when they are very comfortable using MS Excel and don’t understand the reasons why anyone would use MS Access or databases. We’ve written a new paper that describes the issues in detail:

  • How Microsoft Access and Excel Empower Information Workers
  • Advantages of Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets
  • Disadvantages of Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets
  • Advantages of Microsoft Access and Databases
  • Disadvantages of Microsoft Access
  • How they Should Work Together

For more information, visit Microsoft Access versus Microsoft Excel for Data Analysis and Reporting (Spreadsheets vs. Databases).

Feb 16

Linked In Communities for the Microsoft Access, Azure, SQL Server and Visual Studio .NET Communities

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LinkedInLinkedIn offers many opportunities for professionals to interact with each other. There are many groups available for the Microsoft Access, Azure, SQL Server, and Visual Studio .NET communities. Here are some of the vibrant groups we’ve discovered:

Microsoft Access, Excel and VBA

Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Azure and SQL Server


Visual Studio .NET

Aug 31

Recover Unsaved Documents or Return to an Earlier Version of Your Document in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word 2010

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Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint 2010 have a new feature that allows you to recover unsaved documents, even ones that you never saved. This expands on the Autosave feature that was available for years, but unlike earlier versions of MS Office, the automated backups are not deleted when you close your Office host. Additionally, multiple versions of your file are maintained, so that you can return to an earlier version of your document.

For more details, read our Microsoft Office tip, Recover unsaved documents or return to an earlier version of your document in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word 2010.

Aug 29

Quickly Insert Screenshots in Microsoft Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word 2010

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Microsoft Office 2010 has a new feature that makes it easier than ever to insert screenshots into your documents. The Screenshot feature is available in MS Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word 2010. On the Insert tab of the Ribbon, just click “Screenshot” and choose any of the windows that you have open.

For more details, read our Microsoft Office tip, Quickly Insert Screenshots in Microsoft Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint and Word 2010.

Aug 26

Show Data Trends with Tiny Sparkline Charts in Microsoft Excel 2010

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A new feature in Microsoft Excel 2010 lets you insert tiny charts, or Sparklines, into worksheet cells. Sparklines are a powerful way to show a quick snapshot of data trends.

To insert a Sparkline:

  • Select the cell where you want to insert the mini chart.
  • On the Insert tab of the Ribbon, choose the desired Sparkline type in the Sparklines group:

For more details, read our Microsoft Excel tip article, Show Data Trends with Tiny Sparkline Charts in Microsoft Excel 2010.

Aug 02

Total Visual CodeTools 2010 Ships for Microsoft Office 2010

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Total Visual CodeTools for Microsoft Office 2010 for VBA and VB6FMS is pleased to announce the release of Total Visual CodeTools 2010, the most popular commercial Visual Basic for Application (VBA) and Visual Basic 6 (VB6) coding product for the Microsoft Office/Access community.

Total Visual CodeTools is an add-in that is integrated with the module editor of all VBA platforms such as Microsoft Office, Access, Excel, Outlook, Word, etc. It offers a wide range of utilities to help developers become more productive when creating new code, taking over existing projects, and delivering more robust solutions.

“Total Visual CodeTools is by far my favorite third-party product,” says Alison Balter, author of Mastering Access Desktop Development, instructor and developer. “Total Visual CodeTools helps you get your job done more quickly and allows you to focus on the fun and exciting aspects of application development. My favorite feature is the Code Cleanup. If you’ve ever inherited a code-intensive database, you’ll appreciate this feature.”

Total Visual CodeTools 2010 includes many enhancements over its predecessor for Office 2007. In addition to supporting VBA in Office 2010, there are new options and better performance for Code Cleanup and Delivery, enhancements to many Code Builders including the Message Box Builder, Recordset Builder, Select Case Builder, and SQL Text Builder. New features simplify the replacement of existing error handling code, and the user interface is enhanced to support Windows 7. There’s also improved support for international languages and operating systems.

“We are very pleased to ship Total Visual CodeTools 2010,” said Luke Chung, President of FMS. “This version represents our seventh major release of this product and our continued support of the VBA and VB6 developer communities.”

Edwin Blancovitch of Advanced Developers in Puerto Rico adds, “I really recommend it. This tool definitely increased my productivity, allows for code optimization and quality, and best of all reduced my costs.”

“I really love Total Visual CodeTools,” said Peter Weinwurm of Axium Canada. “I am completely blown away by how much the products in the Total Access Developer Suite can do, and how much time they will save me.”

Product Information

Total Visual CodeTools supports all Visual Basic 6.0 and VBA development environments including all versions of Microsoft Office from Office 2000 through 2010. Additional information is available on these web pages:

Licensing and Pricing

Total Visual CodeTools is available via ESD and also comes with a professionally printed 164 page user manual and CD.

Total Visual CodeTools is licensed on a per developer basis. A single license is $299. Existing customers can upgrade for $199. It is also included as a standalone product and is part of the Total Access Developer Suite, Total Access Ultimate Suite, and Total Visual Developer Suite.

Total Visual CodeTools can be purchased directly from FMS, corporate resellers, and international distributors. All FMS products include a 30-day money back guarantee.