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Displaying sales in real-time

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Subject:  Displaying sales in real-time
Author:   Alex Chudnovsky:   view profile | all posts by this author | add to favourites
Date:   22:29:04 2 December 2003
 
You do not need to actually program macro to retrieve data and create chart - all of that can be handled by Excel itself.

There are 3 main parts in this task:
1) get data from external data source in a way that can be repeated easily (ie not manually)
2) create chart in Excel spreadsheet based on the data
3) automate task 1) by making it run every X minutes

I assume you know how to do charting, so the main question is really about data retrieval and auto updates. There is a built in function in Excel in menu Data -> Get External Data -> New Database Query, then follow through screens - they are meant for non-technical users. Once you create query you will be able to manually refresh the sheet which in turn would update chart that you can created based on retrieved data.

The only reason why you _might_ need macro is to ensure automatic update of the data - this should be very straightforward. It is possible that you might not even do macro but its been a while since I used Excel for data retrieval (I prefer direct access to database as I usually deal with data tables containing many millions of rows).
 
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  • Displaying sales in real-time, Martin Wright, 1 Dec 18:14
    My Client is looking for a simple real-time graphical representation of web sales. Their business is very fast moving and fluctuates with promotional activity. Ideally th ...
    • Displaying sales in real-time, Legionaire, 2 Dec 08:52
      Hi, We are in the process of developping such a tool for the UK national measurement laboratory. Maybe we have what you are looking for. If I can be of further assistance, conta ...
    • RE: Displaying sales in real-time, Ashley , 2 Dec 11:32
      Hi Martin Could you not use one of the real-time analytics solutions and just beam up the sales funnel onto the wall? I believe products like Hitbox (WebSideStory) could do t ...
      • RE: Displaying sales in real-time, Martin Wright, 2 Dec 22:16
        Thanks Ashley I will talk to them. Martin On 11:32:26 2 December 2003 Ashley wrote: >Hi Martin > >Could you not use one of the real-time analytics solutions >and just beam u ...
    • Displaying sales in real-time, Alex Chudnovsky, 2 Dec 16:39
      Martin, a simple and cheap solution is to use Excel's ability to pull data from database and chart it - this would do exactly what you want with expected delay of 2-3 seconds (like ...
      • Displaying sales in real-time, Martin Wright, 2 Dec 22:15
        Alex thanks for this. I assume you mean writing a macro in Excel to create and update a chart? As it happens this company does generate the volume of sales that would justify a ...
        • Displaying sales in real-time, Alex Chudnovsky, 2 Dec 22:29
          You do not need to actually program macro to retrieve data and create chart - all of that can be handled by Excel itself. There are 3 main parts in this task: 1) get data fro ...
          • Re: Displaying sales in real-time - expensive ways, Alex Chudnovsky, 2 Dec 22:35
            Right, more expensive solution: lots of possibilities here. Your client is probably using some of more or less standard reporting tools such as Business Objects, BRIO, Crystal Repo ...
    • Displaying sales in real-time, tsjerk, 8 Dec 18:12
      Hi Martin, Nedstat can capture sales information (like turnover) and integrate that with other reports online (real-time). It makes it very easy to see how emails/banners and se ...
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