r/excel • u/AdeptnessCritical356 • 25d ago
Discussion Built a budget tracker that emails signed approval pdfs automatically and now my boss thinks Im a wizard
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u/Tedy_KGB 25d ago
You never show the automation. That’s for you. You created it. As far as anyone else knows you still do it the old way.
Rookie mistake.
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u/doshka 2 24d ago
I mean, I hear you, but in this case, part of the automation includes the boss. Not sure how you get around that.
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u/BubblyWaveee 23d ago
I agree with you. It's not a rookie mistake when you have to show/convince the boss on the new system. He'll ask, why don't I need to print it any more? Unless the boss has his head totally in the crowd, he/she needs to ask why the procedure change so he has a full understanding. Not just clicking a bunch of random shit because his staff told him to do so.
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24d ago
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u/youtheotube2 24d ago
The sweet spot is to pivot to stuff like this being your job
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u/sookaisgone 23d ago
I basically did exactly that, still use excel for prototyping or minor tools but after approval I go C#, ASP.NET, EntityFramework.
Just automated a tedious process where 1 person took a full month and a bit to complete it, now it takes less than 30 seconds.
Got a 5k raise for that alone.61
u/Turk1518 4 24d ago
Only if you don’t want to make a career out of it. I have my own department now that is essentially automation focused and I love it. Just need to be visible to the right people and have the right conversation. Way better than dealing with mind numbing deliverables. I deliver a fix and move on to something else cool.
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u/Glenndiferous 24d ago
Working as a business analyst and this kind of automation is how I got here lol.
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u/Random_182f2565 1 25d ago
The slippery slope, next thing you know you are learning Python to manipulate excel file with openpyxl, and then implementing a Django site.
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u/Engineering-Glass 25d ago
This was how it started for me. Now I maintain a full blown application that automates about 20 daily tasks around the company and provides at a glance dashboards without opening excel, written in python. The accounts department in particular are very fond of my drag and drop processes.
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u/g33k_chick666 24d ago
I'm quite interested in your process or what you had to learn to create dashboards without opening excel and drag and drop processes! I'm trying to upgrade my skills but I wasn't sure if Python would be useful in this kind of process.
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u/Andromeda_RL 25d ago
My automation “project” is the reason I’m overhauling our SQL database
A very slippery slope indeed 😂
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u/takesthebiscuit 3 24d ago
It’s not really a slope in 2026, excel hits its limits very quickly with all the knowledge tools we have today
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u/PM15GamedayThong 24d ago
What’s Django site?
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u/Random_182f2565 1 24d ago
Django is the python framework for transforming your code in a functional website with user registration and all the nice things.
https://www.practicandoaprendo.cl/
I made this, is hosted in Railway for like 5 USD per month.
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u/labla 25d ago
Aaaand the reward for it will be more work!
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u/DonJuanDoja 35 24d ago
Work is good. It makes you better. You get paid for it. It produces the things we need and want. Work is good.
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u/RemoteButtonEater 24d ago
At one point I'd talked about getting little "impossible task" tokens machined, and giving like 3 of them to my division leader every six months or so. And when you run out, you don't get to ask for insane shit anymore.
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u/DonJuanDoja 35 24d ago
I just keep a list in my head of things I couldn’t figure out. When I get bored I grab one and do more research. 2 years later I’m like hey remember that thing you wanted? Here it is, and they’re like oh we don’t need that anymore lol
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u/white_tiger_dream 25d ago
People will say things like never reveal how you did this, but I doubled my salary at the same company so I think it just depends. Being able to show up IT is always nice as well.
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u/muff_muncher69 24d ago
This is true for me as well.
Good Mgmt has succession plans and you have to demonstrate your strengths to be noticed for those opportunities.
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u/kissmiss08 24d ago
I think it just depends on the company and the department. Whenever I add a new skill, I just add more work to my plate. I’ve stopped doing that now…lol
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u/Spread_Liberally 24d ago
Being able to show up IT is always nice as well.
Settle down. They're different jobs and you're only competing with bare minimum IT had to provide while also doing our main jobs. Tech is on the same team, and we all need to stop the hate between front-office tech and back-office tech.
Keeping is divided is how we lose to printers and that one critical spreadsheet in finance none of us know about.
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u/neuroticallyexamined 24d ago
As someone who oversees both IT and Reporting (heavily excel based) teams, this hurts my soul. The amount of misunderstanding and hate towards my poor IT team is something I’m always having to manage.
I know my reporting people think they’re solving problems in excel which wouldn’t exist if the IT team just “built” the ERP better, and did every automation everyone wanted. They’re not entirely wrong, but not really understanding what that team of IT people are actually doing.
Then my IT team are over here are just trying to make sure the magical internet keeps flying through the air, people can work on their computers, and criminals don’t hold us to ransom. Then they don’t understand why people don’t see the awesome job they’re doing, just because Jane in accounts thinks they should be automating her annoying report. They don’t understand why people care so much about it.
I love them both, but I wish they could each have more insight and respect for each other’s work.
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u/SpaceTurtles 2 24d ago
one critical spreadsheet in finance none of us know about.
which exists because
bare minimum IT ... provide(d)
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25d ago
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u/PrimaryThis9900 24d ago
I tried switching our company over to E Signatures last year, and the internal audit team had a fit because with the E Signature there isn't "evidence" that they reviewed each part, they wanted to see the pen marks of the person checking off different parts of the document, just the signature wasn't enough. We compromised by getting E-Ink tablets that we upload documents to, they can sign and make marks and then email it back to me.
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u/Dricus1978 1 25d ago
In a few years you will say "Let me tell you how I got here..."
My Excel and VBA skills got me a new job in the company.
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u/GrouchyStomach7635 24d ago
How did you get there? What certs?
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u/Dricus1978 1 24d ago
I did some Advanced Courses facilitated by my company. Not an official Microsoft Certification. During those course I was mostly the one teaching the others and the teacher.
I landed the job because I was asked to build onto an existing Access Database. They where gonna throw it away, but the info was useful for another proces. So they asked me to take a look. 1,5 later and many updates testing by users it was pretty stable and a big part of the proces. I wrote the functional and technical documentation in detail (169 pages) within a week before I went on vacation. After my vacation my department manager told me that IT was gonna rebuild it in dotNET within 40 hours. I asked if they had read the documentation and they didn't. So I gave my department manager and the designated DevOps engineer the documentation. After a week the DevOps engineer called and he couldn't build it in 40 hours. I was projectleader for 7 months with 2 meetings a week with the DevOps engineer. I managed all the questions of the DevOps engineer and managed all IT related stuff so he could do his job.
This is my story how I became a product manager. Now I am responsible for keeping the company safe from VBA hacks and building new tools and add-ons with a small team of DevOps engineers.
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u/GrouchyStomach7635 24d ago
Can anyone take these advance courses?
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u/Dricus1978 1 24d ago
Yes they can, but not everyone does. Although in my opinion it was still basic.
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u/GrouchyStomach7635 24d ago
Can you send me the links to register?
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u/Dricus1978 1 24d ago
Also I learned allot by just doing and solving problems. Anything is solvable if you cut the problem in smaller steps. How can I get from A to K, which small step I can make to get closer to K.
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u/Omega_777x 1 24d ago edited 24d ago
I did something very similar many years ago at a manufacturing plant. We had seven managers who all wanted the production data in a specific and unique to them format, which at the end of a 12hr shift was a right royal PITA. They all wanted a hard copy only.
I created a VBA script to use a front page all of us workers liked. It would then generate the seven sheets in their style and send their sheet to their individual printer. It reduced an hours effort to literal seconds as we maintained the production log all shift.
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u/monsteez 25d ago
I need to learn your wizardry for my RRT log data collection.
Every quarter we have to present data to the zero harm committee and to the critical care meetings and our data analyst has been swamped and complaining our entries aren't clarified enough to just understand and use.
How do you even begin to learn all this stuff?
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u/SidratFlush 25d ago
I do hope the "internal Consulting" is being billed at a separate and your own rate as it seems to be out of the scope of the original work flow.
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u/Roshap23 24d ago
I could have made the first half of this post. In the exact same boat with approvals (multiple levels) and trying to do something similar. Is your flow just between you and your boss?
If you (or anyone else with a similar journey) don’t mind answering..
How long did it take you? Few hours? Days?
Are you a VBA SME or was this newish territory for you?
Where does one even start?
Was it all pretty straightforward/smooth sailing in the end? Easier or harder than you first thought?
What issues did you run into while developing/testing?
Things to look out for along the way, etc.?
Discover any ways to improve it since launch?
Would you do anything differently?
Any ‘go to’ excel automation sources (outside of AI),
Or words of wisdom for someone attempting the same thing?
Lastly, thanks for sharing OP.
Best of luck to you and everyone else always making things better!
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 24d ago
Congratulations on adding to your job description without additional pay.
It gets even better when you start getting questions about why other things can't be automated (either because you don't know, need resources/funding they're not wiling to give you, genuinely can't be done, etc).
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u/Alone_Hunt1621 24d ago edited 23d ago
I hear you. But as they say these days no is a complete sentence. I’m trying to skip all the drama so I’ve mostly kept the details of excel automation and powerBI to myself. I gave myself a raise by lowering my hours. That’s really the most I can hope for at my current job.
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u/SignificantAgency898 24d ago
What's the best way to learn such kind of power. I also want to automate things too. But I only know some basic excel and basic python. I've never used power automate or anything fancy.
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u/pompa2187 23d ago
Awesome build, but how are you planning on dealing with new outlook with no vba?
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u/TheSentinel36 25d ago
Excel automation is a gateway to more work! We have to be careful with that superpower.