Excel 2007 report sheet question

[hitchface]

Hey folks,

Been a while since I've been on here, but I couldn't really think of who else to ask. Feel special?

I am wanting to create a report sheet in Excel 2007 for a manager and am having a hard time finding the best way to do it.

The sheet is going to have a lot of charts and tables that are reliant on other sheets and formulas buried elsewhere in the system, and I am trying to work it so that those sheets don't need to be open in order for the manager to get the information he needs. Basically, all of the data he will look at currently exists in the form he needs it in, just not all in the same place.

Sorry if that was vague, I am still relatively new to working with Excel. Anyhow, any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Hitch.

[EzyStvy]

First - they are called Spreadsheets and within spreadsheets are other workbooks

Just a little something to help get you started. When you open a new spreadsheet you probably have at least three workbooks. Sheet1/sheet2 and sheet3.

Go to Sheet2 and type 5 in cell A1.

Go back to sheet1 and type: + and then drill back to the 5 you typed in sheet2 cell a1 - hit the enter key.

You will see the formula-> =+Sheet2!A1

Anytime the "5" is changed in sheet2 - sheet1 will be updated....

[hitchface]

Ok, so with that newfound knowledge...

I am trying to create a new spreadsheet for a manager that will combine information from other spreadsheets and Access databases without those other spreadsheets and databases having to be open.

The whole thing is meant to be a big summary of all of the data I sort through so that he doesn't have to. Is there away to do this?

As it stands, I have charts that don't fill with data until the spreadsheet they pull from is opened. I need to avoid this and have said charts fill as soon as data is entered.

[EzyStvy]

Instead of linking to all the other files and such couldn't you just input the needed info into the summary.

[hitchface]

I thought about that, but it would probably add over an hour to the work day to do it that way, and add a redundancy of sorts. Most of the charts involved are comparing production amounts to targets, as well as tracking yields on multiple products. I am already presenting the information on printed charts daily, but it would be nice for this manager to have access to that info without having paper everywhere. This file will eventually be accessed by multiple managers as well.

It sure would be nice to copy and paste a few numbers over each day, but the amount and depth of the information they want to track makes that a fairly time consuming prospect.

Also, making this job idiot proof for the next person in my chair is part of my current job description. The less the next guy/gal has to do, the better. So I'm told.

[hitchface]

Sooo....no ideas?

[EzyStvy]

I'm rather certain you can do just about whatever you want. It's way over my head...You could google "Excel Forums" and find many of the good sites for some assistance

Here's one:
http://www.excelforum.com/

[Planefreak]

I can't think of anyway to automatically, but you can import the data in Excel 2007 and then have it update automatically from there.