Re: [Summary-Talk] Excel macros

[Jason Linhart <jason@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Donald Radlund wrote:
> Can someone help me get started with creating some excel macros to fetch
> data from summary?

There are slightly different ways to do this in various version of
Excel, though they are all essentially the same.

First you need to create a saved query file. This is a plain text file
that contains something like:

WEB
1
http://summary.net:7000/~demo/fullxls/00.xls

This file should get saved with a ".iqy" extension.

The first two lines are fixed, they should always look exactly like
that. The third line is a URL to a Summary report in Excel format, in
this example it is the Hourly Report from the live Summary demo site.
Towards the bottom right of any Summary report, in Summary Plus, SP
Lite, or SP, is an icon that looks something like an 3-d bar chart. That
icon is a link to the current report in Excel format. Excel is fairly
clever and can often get something useful from the HTML versions of the
reports, but things work much more reliably when you have Excel fetch
the data in Excel format.

Then you go to an Excel worksheet and select a cell that you want to
contain the query. Then you tell Excel to run a saved query. Exactly how
you do that varies from one version of Excel to another. On my copy it
is in the Data menu, Get External Data, Run Saved Query . . . In other
versions of Excel it might be Data menu, Import External Data, Import
Data . . . or something similar to those two. Select the .iqy file you
just created.

Excel will then prompt you for where it should place the imported data.
I like to place each imported report on it's own sheet but you can put
the data where ever you want. Just keep in mind that the height might
vary, so leave lots and lots of room below the insertion point.

  From there it is simply a matter of figuring out what data you want and
how to arrange it within the spreadsheet. In newer versions of Excel
queries can be configured to update automatically or upon request. Look
for the External Data toolbar and see what options it offers you.

Enjoy
Jason

-- 
Jason@xxxxxxxxxxx
--
Dr. Seuss books . . . can be read and enjoyed on several levels. For
example, 'One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish' can be deconstructed
as a searing indictment of the narrow-minded binary counting system.
   -- Peter van der Linden, Expert C Programming, Deep C Secrets
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