Microsoft Excel Work Schedule

[Ironbatman007]

My boss uses a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet for our event based employee schedule. The top cells are frozen and do not move but the lines with each name scroll up and down. Right now the schedule has 120 employees and everyone sees everyone’s schedule. He asked me to look for a way to send the top part with schedule with the events and the row with name and their scheduled events so it just shows their row in their email without sending the other ones with it? Is this even possible?
 

Our company won’t pay for any real scheduling software so that is not an option. 

Edited October 26, 2024 by Ironbatman007
Clarifying location of cells frozen

[W1ll1aming]

Welcome to the forums!

 

Im not trying to be rude or anything but what you mean with

45 minutes ago, Ironbatman007 said:

The top lines do not move but the lines with each name scroll up and down.

Is completly unintelligible, you have to remember i have not seen this excel sheet, so its hard to tell what you mean by "the top lines"

 

By the words of it it sounds like he has some kind of table or grid or something in the excel sheet?

 

Is he trying to send only the rows belonging to a specific employee to them?

 

In that case excel has filtering that can be done with tables, filtering based on names

 

 

[W1ll1aming]

43 minutes ago, Ironbatman007 said:

way to send the top part with schedule with the events and the row with name and their scheduled events so it just shows their row in their email

????

[SpookyCitrus]

afaik aside from custom coding, meaning your boss will have to pay a programmer to make a custom code to do this(which can be fairly expensive) or someone is going to need to learn how to do it themselves. Your boss or an employee will need to make individual spreadsheets for each employee. 

 

This may be what you are looking for, but I'd do some decent research on it before trying to implement it.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73005935/send-each-row-an-excel-spreadsheet-as-an-individual-email-in-outlook

 

Not trying to be that guy, but a company with 120+ employees should have zero issue affording and purchasing a simple scheduling program. If your boss is that cheap, let them deal with the fallout.

[W1ll1aming]

5 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Not trying to be that guy, but a company with 120+ employees should have zero issue affording and purchasing a simple scheduling program. If your boss is that cheap, let them deal with the fallout.

I agree, but i guess thats why he asked op to find something

[Dedayog]

17 minutes ago, W1ll1aming said:

Welcome to the forums!

 

Im not trying to be rude or anything but what you mean with

Is completly unintelligible, you have to remember i have not seen this excel sheet, so its hard to tell what you mean by "the top lines"

 

By the words of it it sounds like he has some kind of table or grid or something in the excel sheet?

 

Is he trying to send only the rows belonging to a specific employee to them?

 

In that case excel has filtering that can be done with tables, filtering based on names

 

 

It's completely understandable.  They have done a Freeze Pane action, that's all.

 

 

[Ironbatman007]

44 minutes ago, W1ll1aming said:

Welcome to the forums!

 

Im not trying to be rude or anything but what you mean with

Is completly unintelligible, you have to remember i have not seen this excel sheet, so its hard to tell what you mean by "the top lines"

 

By the words of it it sounds like he has some kind of table or grid or something in the excel sheet?

 

Is he trying to send only the rows belonging to a specific employee to them?

 

In that case excel has filtering that can be done with tables, filtering based on names

 

 

It’s been a number of years since I really worked with Excel to remember the exact term. The top cells are locked like your example of the product name. Where the products are in your example are the employees names and the other frozen cells are the events  and the cells for each employee are an x to indicate they are working the event that day. He is look to send each row along with the frozen cells above to each person below separately to each employee to avoid the problem of people complaining about who is working and number of hours. My boss isn’t the cheap one but the boss above him. 

[Ironbatman007]

2 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

afaik aside from custom coding, meaning your boss will have to pay a programmer to make a custom code to do this(which can be fairly expensive) or someone is going to need to learn how to do it themselves. Your boss or an employee will need to make individual spreadsheets for each employee. 

 

This may be what you are looking for, but I'd do some decent research on it before trying to implement it.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73005935/send-each-row-an-excel-spreadsheet-as-an-individual-email-in-outlook

 

Not trying to be that guy, but a company with 120+ employees should have zero issue affording and purchasing a simple scheduling program. If your boss is that cheap, let them deal with the fallout.

Special coding will be way out of the realm of possibility. My boss is not computer savvy at all. I do have to constantly fix the excel spreadsheets a lot. As far as macros go; I haven’t used many and our company has access to only the web version of excel, do macros work as well for the web version vs the stand alone application?

[kirashi]

11 minutes ago, Ironbatman007 said:

Special coding will be way out of the realm of possibility. My boss is not computer savvy at all. I do have to constantly fix the excel spreadsheets a lot. As far as macros go; I haven’t used many and our company has access to only the web version of excel, do macros work as well for the web version vs the stand alone application?

Most (if not all) macros were limited to the full-blown desktop application (not web or mobile versions) last I checked. Regardless, even if macros worked on web or mobile Excel, I'd never open an Office document with macros on my own personal device, as I cannot verify the macros won't make off with my data or do other nefarious things to my device.

 

While I understand your boss' boss is the "cheap one" it really sounds like they need some kind of scheduling / payroll service that offers the customization they're looking for. If they're unwilling to merely investigate the cost of this (not actually purchase anything) compared to custom-coding something into Excel, they shouldn't be operating a business. Period.

[W1ll1aming]

3 hours ago, Dedayog said:

It's completely understandable.  They have done a Freeze Pane action, that's all.

 

 

I see i was a bit crass, reading it now it makes sense, sorry about that
@Ironbatman007

 

[Ironbatman007]

58 minutes ago, W1ll1aming said:

I see i was a bit crass, reading it now it makes sense, sorry about that
@Ironbatman007

 

@W1ll1aming No worries. I started out with Corel WordPerfect when I was still in school and made the transition to Office way back in the day. Since college, I had really not used excel as much and I still do not use it enough that I am as proficient as I was. I am still someone who would rather buy an application to do the work than office online, I am that old.

[Ironbatman007]

1 hour ago, kirashi said:

Most (if not all) macros were limited to the full-blown desktop application (not web or mobile versions) last I checked. Regardless, even if macros worked on web or mobile Excel, I'd never open an Office document with macros on my own personal device, as I cannot verify the macros won't make off with my data or do other nefarious things to my device.

 

While I understand your boss' boss is the "cheap one" it really sounds like they need some kind of scheduling / payroll service that offers the customization they're looking for. If they're unwilling to merely investigate the cost of this (not actually purchase anything) compared to custom-coding something into Excel, they shouldn't be operating a business. Period.

Back in college (20 Years ago) I was proficient in some macros and wrote my own. This company only deals with Office Online so it does make things harder. 

 

I have presented software in the past for other applications we need (report logging, incidents, shipping receiving). Even one that was only $1.99 a month per user (10 users max) and it was turned down. Unfortunately I was just recently promoted a few years ago and our older staff are stuck in their ways and do not like change or spending.

[W1ll1aming]

14 hours ago, Ironbatman007 said:

. I am still someone who would rather buy an application to do the work than office online, I am that old.

That does not make you old i dare say that is the common opinion for most people atleast in a case like when when requiring some less than basic functionality


Found this when googling, looked like it could be convenient:

 

https://youtu.be/7K_KqD1S2M0?feature=shared

 

[W1ll1aming]

14 hours ago, Ironbatman007 said:

I was just recently promoted a few years ago and our older staff are stuck in their ways and do not like change or spending.

If you guys have microsoft 365, maybe look into planner? If you dont have licenses thek i guessbit wont do either

 

Ive never used it but ive heard you can make plans and assign tasks and things in it, as it is planning software

[kirashi]

21 hours ago, Ironbatman007 said:

I have presented software in the past for other applications we need (report logging, incidents, shipping receiving). Even one that was only $1.99 a month per user (10 users max) and it was turned down. Unfortunately, I was just recently promoted a few years ago and our older staff are stuck in their ways and do not like change or spending.

Good on you for trying - I understand these pains all too well having tried to propose ways to complete XYZ task in a more efficient manner at prior jobs. The reality is that businesses who aren't continuously looking to improve their processes will eventually be bought out or otherwise cease to exist. Technology is here to stay, like it or not, so it's best for businesses to embrace tech and automate certain things, even if there's a small upfront cost, before it's too late.

 

21 hours ago, Ironbatman007 said:

This company only deals with Office Online so it does make things harder. 

Do you know what kind of Office 365 subscription the company pays for? If you have Microsoft Teams, the Shifts app / integration might provide some of what they're looking for when it comes to scheduling.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-is-shifts-f8efe6e4-ddb3-4d23-b81b-bb812296b821

 

That said, if the end-goal is "to avoid the problem of people complaining about who is working and number of hours" then this isn't a problem technology can solve - this is a MaNgLeMeNt issue. If employees are complaining about number of hours, who gets what shifts, etc. then MaNgLeMeNt needs to actually manage the business properly.

[Ironbatman007]

2 hours ago, kirashi said:

Good on you for trying - I understand these pains all too well having tried to propose ways to complete XYZ task in a more efficient manner at prior jobs. The reality is that businesses who aren't continuously looking to improve their processes will eventually be bought out or otherwise cease to exist. Technology is here to stay, like it or not, so it's best for businesses to embrace tech and automate certain things, even if there's a small upfront cost, before it's too late.

 

Do you know what kind of Office 365 subscription the company pays for? If you have Microsoft Teams, the Shifts app / integration might provide some of what they're looking for when it comes to scheduling.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-is-shifts-f8efe6e4-ddb3-4d23-b81b-bb812296b821

 

That said, if the end-goal is "to avoid the problem of people complaining about who is working and number of hours" then this isn't a problem technology can solve - this is a MaNgLeMeNt issue. If employees are complaining about number of hours, who gets what shifts, etc. then MaNgLeMeNt needs to actually manage the business properly.

Funny you should mention it as our company had a merger 3 years ago and just this past fall we were bought out by another company so we are still unsure what our new combined company will end up being or what changes they will start to make. I know we have teams but only full time employees have access to company computers and Microsoft Office 365. The part time staff have no access to anything technology within the facility. 

[Ironbatman007]

9 hours ago, W1ll1aming said:

If you guys have microsoft 365, maybe look into planner? If you dont have licenses thek i guessbit wont do either

 

Ive never used it but ive heard you can make plans and assign tasks and things in it, as it is planning software

I have never used Planner either but I am willing to learn if it will work where my boss will not mess with it and it works right.

[kirashi]

7 hours ago, Ironbatman007 said:

Funny you should mention it as our company had a merger 3 years ago and just this past fall we were bought out by another company so we are still unsure what our new combined company will end up being or what changes they will start to make. I know we have teams but only full time employees have access to company computers and Microsoft Office 365. The part time staff have no access to anything technology within the facility. 

Wait, if the part-time staff have no access to company-provided technology... how are they supposed to check this magic Excel workbook?

[W1ll1aming]

13 hours ago, kirashi said:

Wait, if the part-time staff have no access to company-provided technology... how are they supposed to check this magic Excel workbook?

I would maybe assume they get it sent to a private email address? Tho that seems very strange considering you would not want to send all the schedules of all staff to all the part-timers

 

Ive seen this be a thing before somewhere ive worked

[kirashi]

1 hour ago, W1ll1aming said:

I would maybe assume they get it sent to a private email address? Tho that seems very strange considering you would not want to send all the schedules of all staff to all the part-timers

 

Ive seen this be a thing before somewhere ive worked

Hopefully not, but I too have heard of requiring your employees to use their own electronic devices for work purposes. Where I'm located, this wouldn't fly as it's not legal to force someone (keyword: force) to use their own equipment for work purposes outside of certain industries.

 

To be crystal clear, for me it's less about "hurr durr company must provide all work tools" and more about implicating a company when I claim work-related expenses on my taxes.  I've done it once before, after which the company very quickly told everyone to not use their own devices.

[Ironbatman007]

So the part time employees use their personal emails only to get their schedule. The part time staff have no company computer access. They do need to provide an email to get a copy of their schedule, and use no personal devices for work use.