dimanche 22 janvier 2017

Automate reports creation from sales database, preferably with VBA in Excel

I have an web based database (SPINS/Satori) with sales by client by region and so on, which looks like a set of tables and charts where I can select the type and many other parameters - kind of similar to Tableau outlook. Every month I need to update Excel summary tables based on specific reports from that database so I need to go that website and click all the specific buttons and download the files - nothing fancy, just data tables and not even very big. Just need to download specific reports to specific files. Working with Excel files is not a problem but I do not know how to generate those reports automatically.

Being an Excel geek and doing a lot of automation with VBA I am pretty sure that task can be automated but do not really know where to start. I have basic knowledge of HTML and understand that there is a certain structure, however when I am trying even to log in into that website with VBA code - nothing happens. Obviously doing something wrong but don't know what I don't know.

I did some search for Automating Queries but what I could find relates to Web testing and it looks like it's a bit of an overkill for my task or I searched in the wrong direction.

I also tried to used built in functionality in Excel 2013 for web queries but looks like that request is a complicated task - not sure I can select all the items I need via Excel WQ interface - correct me if I'm wrong.

So my questions would be

  1. Is this type of task doable with VBA? I am pretty sure it is, but if not - then what should I use? Except for VBA - I know a bit of C# - just started to read the beginner's book but happy to proceed further. However would prefer to do this in VBA in the meanwhile

  2. What would be the good examples/tutorials to follow for this kind of tasks?

Thanks, folks.




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