The course is presented in four parts.

First, the course relates earlier course of Top 5 Excel Skills to drive the concept home: Building your own “Bot” is your ticket to full automation in Excel Modeling!

Next, the course brings the topic of what is a VBA macro and let students consider when to and when NOT to build a macro.

Third, we illustrate 6 required steps to build your own report generating “Bot”, including:

o Define the file path to make file path dynamic

o Create a message box to communicate with users

o Use For … Next … Loop for iteration

Fourth, the course illustrates 4 real cases that should NOT require building a VBA macro. These are cases from some VBA courses that are still teaching obsolete Excel skills.

Last, the course explores best practices in building VBA macros. They include:

o How to activate the macro

o Add notes for your codes

o Add a message box

Course Search Keywords

- Macro

- VBA

- Objects

- Properties

- Methods

- Developer tab

- Debugging

- Message box

- For Next Loop

Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation

● Basic Excel knowledge

● Example: be able to open one Excel file and connect to external data files, etc.

Learning Objectives

● Understand VBA macro as 4th Gen of Excel modeling techniques

● Identify 3 elements of a VBA macro

● Recognize when to build a VBA macro and when not to

● Discover 5 elements of a VBA environment

● Explore 5 steps required to build a reporting generating “Bot”

● Understand 4 best practices of building a VBA macro