Want to Protect all of My Programming in an Excel Workbook

[newlife2009]

I wanted to find out if you can block any and all access to the actual coding in an Excel Workbook? The idea being that I have programmed it to output a particular result based on a series of inputs and want to allow a select few others to use it, yet don't want anyone just taking the program and passing it on. And if you can hide the actual coding, does that also guarantee no one would be able to copy the whole program and send it to others?

[xladept]

You may want to have the code as an add-in

[TMS]

And if you can hide the actual coding, does that also guarantee no one would be able to copy the whole program and send it to others?

Pretty much no

Excel is not a secure environment and, although you can protect the VBA project from viewing, there are various ways to "get around it" ... not that we can discuss them here.

For the majority of users, protecting the VBA project will be enough to stop them getting behind the scenes. But, anyone with some knowledge of Excel, access to the internet and determination could get at the code.

As xladept has said, using an Add-in might help but, realistically, it's still an Excel workbook.

If the workbook and code have significant Intellectual Property value you might want to consider who gets/needs access to it.

You could always post a protected sample in the thread with some code in it and see what we can do with it ... just as an experiment.

Regards, TMS

[newlife2009]

You may want to have the code as an add-in

I don't know what you mean by add-in. Can you explain?

[newlife2009]

Pretty much no

Excel is not a secure environment and, although you can protect the VBA project from viewing, there are various ways to "get around it" ... not that we can discuss them here.

For the majority of users, protecting the VBA project will be enough to stop them getting behind the scenes. But, anyone with some knowledge of Excel, access to the internet and determination could get at the code.

As xladept has said, using an Add-in might help but, realistically, it's still an Excel workbook.

If the workbook and code have significant Intellectual Property value you might want to consider who gets/needs access to it.

You could always post a protected sample in the thread with some code in it and see what we can do with it ... just as an experiment.

Regards, TMS

So, should attempting to protect the VBA project and having the code as an add-in fail, are there similar spreadsheet software or applications that would allow complete protection of an Excel-type programming like I mentioned above?

[TMS]

Thanks for the rep

There are third party applications, for example:

http://www.spreadsheetsentry.com/

And:

http://www.doneex.com/?gclid=CJaWhdmdn8QCFTPKtAodNGsAbA

Et al ...

But they don't come cheap. You'd have to test it to see if it worked for you.

[newlife2009]

Thanks for the rep

There are third party applications, for example:

http://www.spreadsheetsentry.com/

And:

http://www.doneex.com/?gclid=CJaWhdmdn8QCFTPKtAodNGsAbA

Et al ...

But they don't come cheap. You'd have to test it to see if it worked for you.

Great. Thanks for the help!

[xladept]

Thanks for the rep! You can make an add-in by declaring the worksheet as an add in there are steps to do this which you can google but anything I could supply would come straight out of Walkenbach.