MS Dos turning into Excel Programme-Database

**Ermhs2006** · 07-07-2015, 06:45 PM

At my work place, at the purchasing department we use a very old programme in MS Dos. What it does generally is we receive a Requisition by e-mail and we put it into the Dos system. Tha takes a number which is always an ascending numerical order. After we put the description inside and to whom we send it , it transfers you automatically to MS Outlook to send the enquiry out to the suppliers via e-mail. When receiving the quotations we insert the date received. After receiving all or the majority of the quotations we put the date where we close it so it will not appear again in the future. Then openning another icon in MS DOS we place the order to the supplier we want and again we put manually the information inside and send it out placing the order after transfering the form automatically in MS Outlook. This is a general description of what is happening. There are many more things, dates we put in order to close every order and not remain open and appear outstanding and other things. All these are running in Windows 2003. New Windows do not support this DOS programme. My company asked to develop it in Excel but I do not know how. Could anyone help me and give me advise , guiding me to achieve it? I will be greatful.

**MrShorty** · 07-08-2015, 04:38 PM

This is probably going to be a significant undertaking, depending on how many tasks this old program performs.

When I have done something similar, I usually start with the source code for the MS-DOS program (mine have usually been in FORTRAN). I will usually spend a bunch of time with this source code, understanding how it works, identifying the subprograms used and what tasks they perform, in general becoming familiar with the details of what this program is doing. I usually don't need great proficiency in the source programming language, but enough to pick out loops, decisions, inputs, outputs, and so on.

Once I have a working idea of what the program is doing and the algorithms it is using, then I start to work on how to perform the same tasks/calculations/algorithms in Excel and/or VBA. I usually approach this using "divide and conquer". So I will identify blocks and subprograms that I know how to do in Excel/VBA and work those out. Then slowly build on that one task at a time until I have the thing reprogrammed in the newer language.

Good luck. This sort of thing is probably a bigger task than an free internet forum can really tackle. If you break it down into parts that you get stuck on and ask specific, narrow questions related a part you are having trouble with, we will be glad to help with questions on a smaller scope related to the larger project.

**Ermhs2006** · 07-09-2015, 06:46 PM

Thank you very much for your reply. Looks difficult to me as I don't have easy access to the source code. You gave me the steps how to start and I will make a try.