Month: February 2011

I recently needed to build an Excel addin that supported a variable number of options, with buttons to invoke the options. That in itself is not unusual, but I also wanted the numbers to be driven by the user; which always complicates matters. The definition of the buttons is simple, even allowing for the fact that it will be maintained by users. I could use a separate configuration workbook, an INI file, or even XML. As I am looking to make this a user driven facility, within an overall Excel framework, an Excel workbook seems the best option. For the … Continue reading Ribbon on the Fly, or the Zip

Keep It Simple? Don’t Be Daft! I was recently working on a project where we were using SSRS to create XML reports which are then imported into Excel to facilitate further analysis. Unfortunately, I could not see any option in PowerPivot to connect to an XML source. There is the option for text and RSS, but no XML that I can see. I know I could create an RDL and connect to that, but XML is far more than just SSRS. I raised this with some colleagues, and one of them pointed me to this Microsoft article, Data Feed XML … Continue reading Keep It Simple? Don’t be Daft!