Your Assignment: Create A Simple Invoice App
This is an experiment, something I've wanted to do for a long time. Basically, it's a way to see how different people approach a project. If nobody responds, I'll just slither away and forget I ever proposed it.
I'll provide you with some project specs, then you create an Excel workbook that meets those specs. When you're finished, send your workbook to me and I'll make them available to others. We can then discuss the various approaches, and maybe even determine which one is best. As a side-benefit, some people may even learn a thing or two when they see the final results.
The Assignment:
XYZ Health Products sells 89 products. Your job is to create an Excel workbook that makes it easy for a clerk to enter the products purchased, the quantity of each, and print an invoice.
The Specifications:
- The list of products and prices is available here (XLS file).
- The application should also allow the user to enter a product that's not on the list.
- The invoice should display the customer's name and address, positioned so the page can be folded and inserted into a window envelope.
- A 7.25% sales tax is assessed only if the customer resides in Nebraska.
- The invoice must display the total at the bottom.
- It should be usable by a novice Excel user with no more than five minutes of training.
- It should be relatively "bullet-proof" (i.e., the clerk can't easily screw it up).
- There is no need to store the data that's entered.
- Macros are allowed.
- It should look professional.
Send It To:
Send your invoice workbook to walkenbach@gmail.com no later than October 26. I'll zip them all together so others can see the various approaches. If you prefer to remain anonymous, just let me know.
Dick Kusleika:
Great idea, J-Walk. I can’t wait to get started on it.
19 October 2005, 12:10 pmdoco:
Will the say, top three, be made available for review? It would really be good to see how folks do things…
Especially some of the heavyweights who hang out here.
doco
19 October 2005, 12:19 pmJohn Walkenbach:
doco, the plan is to make them all available for review.
19 October 2005, 1:22 pmRembo:
Sounds like a challenge J-Walk. How much time do we have to complete the assignment?
Rembo
20 October 2005, 12:25 amjkpieterse:
Rembo: Like any customer project: Please have it done yesterday, at no cost at all
20 October 2005, 4:04 amXL-Dennis:
Would it be of interest to see how we can solve it with GNumeric (a spreadsheet software on the Linux-platform) ?
The keypoint with it would be to show how similar it is with Excel (not in all aspects and excluding VBA!).
Kind regards,
20 October 2005, 5:00 amDennis
Rembo:
Lol.. so true JKP!
Dennis, how about Open Office? That is cross platform and the macro language looks in some respect a bit similar to VBA although I’m sure most of us will find it a hard cookie to crack.
Rembo
20 October 2005, 5:26 amXL-Dennis:
Rembo,
In general I find GNumeric to be more interesting then OpenOffice, especially as it has some nice exclusive built-in functions
Personally I wouldn’t touch the script language provided with any of these Linux-based spreadsheet softwares. It would be to step back in time to the mid 80’s…
Kind regards,
20 October 2005, 5:48 amDennis
jkpieterse:
Rembo, Dennis: I’ve tried getting into programming in OpenOffice, but it *is* like Dennis says: back to the mid eighties:
- No intellisense
20 October 2005, 11:17 am- No help on object model
- No auto-capitalisation of variables
- I forgot what else (I dropped the trial because I got too busy doing real work :-))
mschaef:
“Personally I wouldn’t touch the script language provided with any of these Linux-based spreadsheet softwares. It would be to step back in time to the mid 80’s…”
I dunno, Gnumeric has Python scripting. The language itself is a considerable step forward from Visual BASIC.
20 October 2005, 11:19 amdoco:
[quote]
The language itself is a considerable step forward from Visual BASIC.
[\quote]
Danger Will Robinson! Heretic on board ;-D
doco
20 October 2005, 12:12 pmJon Peltier:
>> I forgot what else (I dropped the trial because I got too busy doing real work).
Real work gets in the way of lots of fun stuff. But I suspect the OO was more frustrating than fun, and I doubt there’s much business for it. Those too cheap to use the original Excel will be too cheap to hire a programmer.
20 October 2005, 4:38 pmmschaef:
“Danger Will Robinson! Heretic on board ;-D”
Take solace: I deliberately didn’t mention the environment or object models.
MS has those down nicely.
20 October 2005, 6:27 pmjkpieterse:
Jon: Can you imagine what it was like to be amazed when you could have BASIC print your name 1000 times on the teletype machine? Well, that was how programming in OO felt like to me…
21 October 2005, 1:50 amdoco:
In danger of displaying my poor intellect…
JK: imagine the level of dismay you would feel when finding out you can be your own grandmother. ‘thats what OO feels like to me’.
I am afraid I may never quite grasp it
21 October 2005, 8:10 amDaily Dose of Excel » Invoice App: The Results:
[…] ked readers to create a simple invoice application using the specifications I listed. See: Your Assignment: Create A Simple Invoice App. Nine pe […]
27 October 2005, 11:11 am