Excel and interactive web interface

Hi,

I'm sure there are some people on this forum that have a lot of experience with this and so I want to pick your brains. I have working for some time on developing code for personal use on my home/ work computers. This is fine since I am the only one working with them and so no issues with security, dealing with bugs, etc. because I know how to deal with them.

My problem now is that I want to share some of these applications with others at the same time don't want to have to keep sending new files everytime I make a tweak or modification to the code. Also I don't want the code to be easily accessible and its a well-known fact that the security in Excel can use a major upgrade.

Therefore, my question relates to using a website as an interface for Excel. Can this be done and what are the know issues with this?

Current tasks that the Excel macros do:

1) Import text files into Excel and rearrange columns, delete some columns, merge data from some columns, etc.

2) Conditional formatting of cells and changing color of specific text within cells.

3) Creating new excel workbooks with dropdown menus from specific worksheets.

4) Import data from excel workbooks to a main workbook for analysis.

5) Add formulas for analysis incluing array formulas

So can html be an interface for this or do I have to program everything in html or use another program like Access?

All thoughts and comments are most welcome.

Thanks.

abousetta

Any thoughts?

Bump...

abousetta

I'm fairly certain that this isn't possible.

Thanks Roy. From your experience what would be the best option then? Is this option available in Acess or do I need to find a programmer to custom create something in another programming language? I am fairly new to progamming in general and so any insight is helpful.

For example, a couple of years ago, we asked someone to create a custom database for us. He ended making an access database with an html interface where (from my understanding) the individual PC worked as a server hosting the database and the user used IE to access the content.

Any thoughts or links for further reading would be appreciated.

abousetta

Using an Access back end with a web front end is quite common although generally more robust databases are used SQL server MySql etc.

Once you start on this track however you need to start thinking in database terms rather than Excel - it's a different mindset altogether. Your specific requirements seem very rooted in Excel however, and it is extremely difficult to mimic excel functionality using a web medium. I'd suggest if you want to look at this you look into using the .net framework with VB as your language as it's the most similar to Excel.

If you want this functionality whilst having mutiple users, have a look at using google docs rather than Excel, this should give you the functionality you require whilst ensuring everyone has an up to date version. You can even create macro's if you are prepared to learn Javascript.

Depending on who you are looking at sharing your workbook with, a solution I have used in the past is to keep the workbook on a network share, set it to read only and send people the link - this can be taken even further if you like, you can put shortcuts on users' start menus linking to the workbook, or if you version often, to a batch file which will open the workbook (this allows you to change the location and rename without updating shortcuts).

This last option is probably the easiest as you already have most of it set up

Just a few ideas, I've done each of them if you'd like any further info