Microsoft Excel VBA Training - Structuring an MS Excel Visual Basic Macro Training Course

Microsoft Excel VBA Training - Structuring an MS Excel Visual Basic Macro Training Course

This article considers how to structure a classroom-based training class in Microsoft Excel Visual Basic for Applications.

Length of Course

There is a lot to learn in Excel VBA, and you could easily run a course over several weeks. However, we believe that two days is optimal.

The reason that it doesn't make sense to run a course for any longer than this is that there's a good chance that it will be a waste of time for more than half of the delegates on the course. Many people can't program, and even those who can don't always enjoy it. So while a long course would be of benefit for the minority of delegates who both enjoy and are good at programming (like the author of this article!), it would just alienate everyone else. Two days is long enough to find out who has a future in programming.

One day, on the other hand, isn't enough to cover all of the fundamental building blocks of Excel VBA. In particular, you can't send people away without knowing advanced topics like event-handling, creating user forms and looping over collections, then expect them to solve problems efficiently. This would be like asking a builder to create an extension to your house without using hammers, a cement-mixer or screwdrivers. So ... two days.

Contents of Course

To learn Visual Basic in Excel, you need to learn about the following topics. We'd suggest teaching them in this order:

- selecting cells, both in absolute mode and relative mode (the difference between Range("A1").Select and ActiveCell.Offset(1,0).Select - the first always goes to the same cell, the second moves relative to the currently selected cell).

- input and message boxes (the InputBox function and MsgBox command), as well as creating and using variables (the DIM statement).

- the VBA terms object, collection, method and property. It takes a long time for the average delegate to get used to these, but if you introduce the terms early on the meaning will gradually sink in over the two days of training.

- using conditions and loops, including indenting code properly and documenting your algorithm

- recording macros (if you do this at the start of the course, people won't understand the code which has been recorded on their behalf; that's why we'd recommend leaving this until delegates have learnt the underlying concepts of object-orientated programming).

- looping over collections (for each item in collection) - it makes sense to do this on the morning of the second day, when delegates will be most able to take in this new concept.

- attaching macros to events (such as opening and closing workbooks, or clicking on cells)

- creating user forms (a nice easy topic for the afternoon of the second day)

- referencing other applications (perhaps using FileSystemObjects, or linking Excel to Word), for good groups only.

We're not saying the above way is the only way to train this course, but it works for us (and for our delegates). If you don't agree, please do leave a comment!

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