Trending November 2023 # Understanding Excel Vba Data Types (Variables And Constants) # Suggested December 2023 # Top 20 Popular

You are reading the article Understanding Excel Vba Data Types (Variables And Constants) updated in November 2023 on the website Cancandonuts.com. We hope that the information we have shared is helpful to you. If you find the content interesting and meaningful, please share it with your friends and continue to follow and support us for the latest updates. Suggested December 2023 Understanding Excel Vba Data Types (Variables And Constants)

In Excel VBA, you would often be required to use variables and constants.

When working with VBA, a variable is a location in your computer’s memory where you can store data. The type of data you can store in a variable would depend on the data type of the variable.

For example, if you want to store integers in a variable, your data type would be ‘Integer’ and if you want to store text then your data type would be ‘String’.

More on data types later in this tutorial.

While a variable’s value changes when the code is in progress, a constant holds a value that never changes. As a good coding practice, you should define the data type of both – variable and constant.

When you code in VBA, you would need variables that you can use to hold a value.

The benefit of using a variable is that you can change the value of the variable within the code and continue to use it in the code.

For example, below is a code that adds the first 10 positive numbers and then displays the result in a message box:

Sub AddFirstTenNumbers() Dim Var As Integer Dim i As Integer Dim k as Integer For i = 1 To 10 k = k + i Next i MsgBox k End Sub

There are three variables in the above code – Var, i, and k.

The above code uses a For Next loop where all these three variables are changed as the loops are completed.

The usefulness of a variable lies in the fact that it can be changed while your code is in progress.

Below are some rules to keep in mind when naming the variables in VBA:

You can use alphabets, numbers, and punctuations, but the first number must be an alphabet.

You can not use space or period in the variable name. However, you can use an underscore character to make the variable names more readable (such as Interest_Rate)

You can not use special characters (#, $, %, &, or !) in variable names

VBA doesn’t distinguish between the case in the variable name. So ‘InterestRate’ and ‘interestrate’ are the same for VBA. You can use mixed case to make the variables more readable.

VBA has some reserved names that you can use for a variable name. For example, you can not use the word ‘Next’ as a variable name, as it’s a reserved name for For Next loop.

Your variable name can be up to 254 characters long.

To make the best use of variables, it’s a good practice to specify the data type of the variable.

The data type you assign to a variable will be dependent on the type of data you want that variable to hold.

Below is a table that shows all the available data types you can use in Excel VBA:

Data Type Bytes Used Range of Values

Byte 1 byte 0 to 255

Boolean 2 bytes True or False

Integer 2 bytes -32,768 to 32,767

Long (long integer) 4 bytes -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647

Single 4 bytes -3.402823E38 to -1.401298E-45 for negative values; 1.401298E-45 to 3.402823E38 for positive values

Double 8 bytes -1.79769313486231E308 to-4.94065645841247E-324 for negative values; 4.94065645841247E-324 to 1.79769313486232E308 for positive values

Currency 8 bytes -922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807

Decimal 14 bytes +/-79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,335 with no decimal point;+/-7.9228162514264337593543950335 with 28 places to the right of the decimal

Date 8 bytes January 1, 100 to December 31, 9999

Object 4 bytes Any Object reference

String (variable-length) 10 bytes + string length 0 to approximately 2 billion

String (fixed-length) Length of string 1 to approximately 65,400

Variant (with numbers) 16 bytes Any numeric value up to the range of a Double

Variant (with characters) 22 bytes + string length Same range as for variable-length String

User-defined Varies The range of each element is the same as the range of its data type.

When you specify a data type for a variable in your code, it tells VBA to how to store this variable and how much space to allocate for it.

For example, if you need to use a variable that is meant to hold the month number, you can use the BYTE data type (which can accommodate values from 0 to 255). Since the month number is not going to be above 12, this will work fine and also reserve less memory for this variable.

On the contrary, if you need a variable to store the row numbers in Excel, you need to use a data type that can accommodate a number up to 1048756. So it’s best to use the Long data type.

As a good coding practice, you should declare the data type of variables (or constants) when writing the code. Doing this makes sure that VBA allocates only the specified memory to the variable and this can make your code run faster.

Below is an example where I have declared different data types to different variables:

Sub DeclaringVariables() Dim X As Integer Dim Email As String Dim FirstName As String Dim RowCount As Long Dim TodayDate As Date End Sub

To declare a variable data type, you need to use the DIM statement (which is short for Dimension).

In ‘Dim X as Integer‘, I have declared the variable X as Integer data type.

Now when I use it in my code, VBA would know that X can hold only integer data type.

If I try to assign a value to it which is not an integer, I will get an error (as shown below):

Note: You can also choose to not declare the data type, in which case, VBA automatically considers the variable of the variant data type. A variant data type can accommodate any data type. While this may seem convenient, it’s not a best practice to use variant data type. It tends to take up more memory and can make your VBA code run slower.

While you can code without ever declaring variables, it’s a good practice to do this.

Apart from saving memory and making your code more efficient, declaring variables has another major benefit – it helps trap errors caused by misspelled variable names.

To make sure you’re forced to declare variables, add the following line to the top of your module.

Option Explicit

When you add ‘Option Explicit’, you will be required to declare all the variables before running the code. If there is any variable that has not been declared, VBA would show an error.

There is a huge benefit in using Option Explicit.

Sometimes, you may end up making a typing error and enter a variable name which is incorrect.

Normally, there is no way for VBA to know whether it’s a mistake or is intentional. However, when you use ‘Option Explicit’, VBA would see the misspelled variable name as a new variable that has not been declared and will show you an error. This will help you identify these misspelled variable names, which can be quite hard to spot in a long code.

Below is an example where using ‘Option Explicit’ identifies the error (which couldn’t have been trapped had I not used ‘Option Explicit’)

Sub CommissionCalc() Dim CommissionRate As Double CommissionRate = 0.1 Else CommissionRtae = 0.05 End If MsgBox "Total Commission: " & Range("A1").Value * CommissionRate End Sub

Note that I have misspelled the word ‘CommissionRate’ once in this code.

If I don’t use Option Explicit, this code would run and give me the wrong total commission value (in case the value in cell A1 is less than 10000).

But if I use Option Explicit at the top of the module, it will not let me run this code before I either correct the misspelled word or declare it as another variable. It will show an error as shown below:

While you can insert the line ‘Option Explicit’ every time you code, here are the steps to make it appear by default:

Check the option – “Require Variable Declaration”.

Once you have enabled this option, whenever you open a new module, VBA would automatically add the line ‘Option Explicit’ to it.

Note: This option will only impact any module you create after this option is enabled. All existing modules are not affected.

So far, we have seen how to declare a variable and assign data types to it.

In this section, I will cover the scope of variables and how you can declare a variable to be used in a subroutine only, in an entire module or in all the modules.

The scope of a variable determines where can the variable be used in VBA,

There are three ways to scope a variable in Excel VBA:

Within a single subroutine (Local variables)

Within a module (Module-level variables)

In all modules (Public variables)

Let’s look at each of these in detail.

When you declare a variable within a subroutine/procedure, then that variable is available only for that subroutine.

You can not use it in other subroutines in the module.

As soon as the subroutine ends, the variable gets deleted and the memory used by it is freed.

In the below example, the variables are declared within the subroutine and would be deleted when this subroutine ends.

When you want a variable to be available for all the procedures in a module, you need to declare it at the top of the module (and not in any subroutine).

Once you declare it at the top of the module, you can use that variable in all the procedures in that module.

In the above example, the variable ‘i’ is declared at the top of the module and is available to be used by all the modules.

Note that when the subroutine ends, the module level variables are not deleted (it retains its value).

Below is an example, where I have two codes. When I run the first procedure and then run the second one, the value of ‘i’ becomes 30 (as it carries the value of 10 from the first procedure)

If you want a variable to be available in all the procedure in the workbook, you need to declare it with the Public keyword (instead of DIM).

The below line of code at the top of the module would make the variable ‘CommissionRate’ available in all the modules in the workbook.

Public CommissionRate As Double

You can insert the variable declaration (using the Public keyword), in any of the modules (at the top before any procedure).

When you work with local variables, as soon as the procedure ends, the variable would lose its value and would be deleted from VBA’s memory.

In case you want the variable to retain the value, you need to use the Static keyword.

Let me first show you what happens in a normal case.

In the below code, when I run the procedure multiple times, it will show the value 10 everytime.

Sub Procedure1() Dim i As Integer i = i + 10 MsgBox i End Sub

Now if I use the Static keyword instead of DIM, and run the procedure multiple times, it will keep on showing values in increments of 10. This happens as the variable ‘i’ retains its value and uses it in the calculation.

Sub Procedure1() Static i As Integer i = i + 10 MsgBox i End Sub

While variables can change during the code execution, if you want to have fixed values, you can use constants.

A constant allows you to assign a value to a named string that you can use in your code.

The benefit of using a constant is that it makes it easy to write and comprehend code, and also allows you to control all the fixed values from one place.

For example, if you are calculating commissions and the commission rate is 10%, you can create a constant (CommissionRate) and assign the value 0.1 to it.

In future, if the commission rate changes, you just need to make the change at one place instead of manually changing it in the code everywhere.

Below is a code example where I have assigned a value to the constant:

Sub CalculateCommission() Dim CommissionValue As Double Const CommissionRate As Double = 0.1 CommissionValue = Range("A1") * CommissionRate MsgBox CommissionValue End Sub

The following line is used to declare the constant:

Const CommissionRate As Double = 0.1

When declaring constants, you need to start with the keyword ‘Const‘, followed by the name of the constant.

Note that I have specified the data type of the constant as Double in this example. Again, it’s a good practice to specify the data type to make your code run faster and be more efficient.

If you don’t declare the data type, it would be considered as a variant data type.

Just like variables, constants can also have scope based on where and how these are declared:

Within a single subroutine (Local constants): These are available in the subroutine/procedure in which these are declared. As the procedure ends, these constants are deleted from the system’s memory.

Within a module (Module-level constants): These are declared at the top of the module (before any procedure). These are available for all the procedures in the module.

In all modules (Public constants): These are declared using the ‘Public’ keyword, at the top of any module (before any procedure). These are available to all the procedures in all the modules.

You May Also Like the Following VBA Tutorials:

You're reading Understanding Excel Vba Data Types (Variables And Constants)

Understanding Static And Dynamic Data

Data collection practices receive increasingly more attention and sophistication. Web scraping, and automated acquisition processes in general, changed the nature of data collection so much that old challenges were solved and new problems emerged.

One of them is the selection of data in regards to dynamicity. Since now we’re able to collect unthinkable volumes of information in mere seconds, getting some particular sample is no longer an issue. Additionally, in business, we will often scour the same sources over and over to monitor competition, brands, and anything else that’s relevant to the industry.

Data dynamicity is, as such, a question of optimization. Refreshing data each time might not be necessary in cases where certain fields might not be updated frequently, or those changes might have no importance to the use case.

Static vs dynamic data

Static data can be defined in a two-fold manner. As an object of information, it’s one that doesn’t change (frequently). Examples of such sources could be editorial articles, country or city names, descriptions of events and locations, etc. A factual news report, once published, is unlikely to ever be changed in the future.

Dynamic data, on the other hand, is something that is constantly in flux, often due to external factors. Frequently encountered types of dynamic data might be product pricing, stock numbers, reservation counts, etc.

Somewhere in the middle lies the twilight zone of both definitions, as is the case when you try to put everything into neat little boxes. There are objects of information such as product descriptions, meta titles of articles, and commercial pieces of content that change with some frequency.

Whether these fall under static or dynamic data will depend upon the intended use. Projects, independently from the type of data, will have more or less use for specific informational sources. SEO tools, for example, might find less value in pricing data, but will want to refresh meta titles, descriptions, and many other features.

Pricing models, on the other hand, will scarcely have use for frequently-updated product descriptions. They might need to grab it once for product-matching purposes. If it gets updated for SEO purposes down the line, there’s still no reason to ever revisit the description.

Mapping out your data

Every data analysis and collection project will have its necessities. Going back to the pricing model example, two technical features will be necessary – product matching and pricing data.

Products need to be matched as any automated pricing implementation needs accuracy. Mismatching products and changing pricing could cause an enormous amount of damage to revenue, especially if the changes go unaddressed.

Most of the matching happens through product titles, descriptions, and specifications. The former two will change often, especially in ecommerce platforms, where optimizing for keywords is an important ranking factor. They, however, will have no impact on the ability to match product identities as fundamental features will not change (e.g., an iPhone will always remain an iPhone).

As such, descriptions and titles might be treated as static data, even if they are somewhat dynamic. For the project’s purposes, the changes are not nearly as impactful to warrant continued monitoring.

Pricing data, as it may already be obvious, is not only naturally constantly in flux, but catching any changes as they happen would be essential to the project. As such, it would certainly be considered dynamic data.

Reducing costs with mapping

Regardless of the integration method, whether internal or external, data collection and storage practices are costly. Additionally, most companies will use cloud-based storage solutions, which can include all writes into the overall cost, meaning that refreshing data will cut into the budget.

Mapping out data types (i.e., static or dynamic) can optimize data collection processes through several avenues. First, pages can be categorized into static-data, dynamic-data, or mixed. While the first category might be somewhat shallow, it would still indicate that there’s no need to revisit those pages frequently, if at all.

Mixed pages might also make it easier to reduce write and storage costs. Reducing the amount of data transferred from one place to another is, by itself, a form of optimization, but these become more relevant when bandwidth, read/write, and storage costs are taken into account.

Since, however, scrapers usually download the entire HTML, any visit to a URL will have the entire object stored in memory. With the use of external providers, costs are usually allocated per request, so there’s no difference between updating all data fields or only the dynamic ones.

Yet, in some applications, historical data might be necessary. Downloading and updating the same field with the same data every time period would run up write and storage costs without good reason. A simple comparison function can be implemented that checks whether anything has changed and only performs a write if it has been so.

Finally, with internal scraping pipelines, all of the above still applies, however, to a much greater degree. Costs can be optimized by reducing unnecessary scrapes, limiting the amount of writes, and parsing only the necessary parts of the HTML.

In the end, developing frameworks is taking the first step towards true optimization. They may start out, as this one may be, as overly theoretical, but frameworks give us a lens for interpreting processes that are already in place.

Author:

Example Of Getobject Function In Excel Vba

Excel VBA GetObject

VBA GetObject, as the name, seems like we need to create a code for getting or creating an object. But in fact, it is the process of getting the Tables from any word to excel file. In VBA GetObject, we fetch the data from a word file by putting the location where it is kept and append any number of tables from that Word into the Excel sheet.

Syntax of VBA GetObject

Watch our Demo Courses and Videos

Valuation, Hadoop, Excel, Mobile Apps, Web Development & many more.

Syntax is explained as shown below:

PathName = Here we will be giving the path to the Word document where it is kept. This field is optional.

Class = Here, we need to define the Class of Object function. This one is too optional. But if we are not defining the PathName in the syntax then Class will be must to define.

Both the arguments of the syntax are optional. But anyone of them should be defined.

Example of GetObject Function in Excel VBA

We will be seeing, how to fetch the data which is in the form of Table in a word document and append that data in Excel worksheet.

You can download this VBA GetObject Excel Template here – VBA GetObject Excel Template

For this, we require such data in word file. Here, we are having a word file below, which has 2 tables of Employee name and Employee ID.

We have saved this file somewhere in our local drive which is easy to access. Follow the below steps to use GetObject function in Excel VBA.

Step 1: Go to VBA window and open a Module from the Insert menu tab as shown below.

Step 2: In the newly opened Module, write the subcategory of VBA GetObject or you can choose any other name as per need.

Step 3: First, define the 2 Object variable to access the Object prepared by VBA GetObject.

Step 4: We would need another variable for which we will store the location of File as String.

Step 5: To avoid any break if an error occurs we will keep resuming the next step.

Step 6: Now we would use GetObject function and set it as WordFile object. Keeping Path blank, we will define the Class as Word.Application where Word is the application of Microsoft.

Step 7: To avoid error number 429 which usually occurs in this case, we will clear it as it happens.

Step 8: Now make the created Object variable WordFile visible.

Step 9: As we haven’t defined the path, so we will assign file location to StrDoc along with the extension.

Step 10: If we did not find anything in the word file, then we should be getting a message prompting that “No Data Available” or “Document Not Found”. And this would be done in If-End If loop.

Step 11: Now activate the Word file.

Step 12: Do the same procedure for setting WordDoc as well. If WordDoc is nothing then we will open the file from the location where it is kept.

Step 13: Now we will need to define the variables which will help in accessing the table from Word document. By this we will be creating a Table with Rows and Columns.

Step 15: At this stage, we need to check the number of tables in Word file. And if there are no tables found then we should be getting the message for that.

Step 16: In this step, we need to access the table from Word document and map that in Excel file. For this, we will use For loop for each row and column.

Step 17: At last we will quit the document once it appends the data from word to excel file without saving the file.

We will see, the data which we have seen at the starting of the article which was separate in 2 different tables, is now appended in a single table in the excel sheet.

Below is the complete code in one sequence:

Code:

Sub

VBA_GetObject()

Dim

WordFile

As Object

Dim

WordDoc

As Object

Dim

StrDoc

As String

On Error Resume Next

Set

WordFile = GetObject(, "Word.Application")

Err.Number = 429

Then

Err.Clear

Set

WordFile = CreateObject("Word.Application")

End If

WordFile.Visible =

True

StrDoc = "D:InputTest.docx"

Dir(StrDoc) = ""

Then

MsgBox StrDoc & vbCrLf & "Not Found in mentioned Path" & vbCrLf & "C:Input Location", vbExclamation, "Document name not found"

Exit Sub

End If

WordFile.Activate

Set

WordDoc = WordFile.Documents(StrDoc)

WordDoc

Is Nothing Then Set

WordDoc = WordFile.Documents.Open("D:InputTest.docx") WordDoc.Activate

Dim

Tble

As Integer

Dim

RowWord

As Long

Dim

ColWord

As Integer

Dim

As Long

Dim

As Long

A = 1 B = 1

With

WordDoc Tble = WordDoc.Tables.Count

Tble = 0

Then

MsgBox "No Tables Avaiable", vbExclamation, "Nothing To Import"

Exit Sub

End If

For

i = 1

Tble

With

.Tables(i)

For

RowWord = 1

.Rows.Count

For

ColWord = 1

.Columns.Count Cells(A, B) = WorksheetFunction.Clean(.cell(RowWord, ColWord).Range.Text) B = B + 1

ColWord B = 1 A = A + 1

RowWord

End With

WordDoc.Close Savechanges:=

False

WordFile.Quit

Set

WordDoc =

Nothing

Set

WordFile =

Nothing

End Sub

Pros of Excel VBA GetObject

It is quite useful in importing the big set of data from word file to excel file.

We can import any kind of data from any kind of file just by changing the extension of it.

Things to Remember

Close all the word files before running the code.

Give the proper extension to the file which is being used.

GetObject cannot be used to access the reference to class.

How To Use Vba Trim Function To Remove Spaces In Excel?

Excel VBA Trim Function

Excel VBA Trim Function is used for removing the extra spaces from any cell or text and gives us the output which has a standard in terms of required spaces. VBA Trim function works exactly as the Excel Trim function and Trim function also removes the extra spaces in 3 ways;

Watch our Demo Courses and Videos

Valuation, Hadoop, Excel, Mobile Apps, Web Development & many more.

Spaces from the starting of the text.

Spaces from the end of the text.

Spaces from the middle of the text if more than 1 extra space is seen.

This mostly happens when we download data from some server, data warehouse or while incorrectly inserting the extra spaces manually. Even though we can easily see the spaces at the middle of the text, but spaces at the beginning and end of text cannot be seen easily until and unless we go to edit mode of that specific cell. This can be done by VBA Marco.

How to Use Excel VBA Trim Function?

We will discuss how to use VBA Trim Function by using some examples.

You can download this VBA Trim Function Excel Template here – VBA Trim Function Excel Template

VBA Trim Function – Example #1

Here we have 3 cells in the below screenshot.

And each cell has some spaces associated with them. Cell A1 has spaces at the end.

Cell A2 has spaces at the beginning of the text.

And cell A3 has space in between the text which is highlighted in the below screenshot.

This will take us to Visual Basic coding window. Now go to the Insert menu from VBA window and select Module as shown below.

This will create a new Module where we will write a code for trimming. Below are the steps for creating and writing trimming code:

First, choose a variable and define a range. Here we have selected the variable “A”. This variable can be anything.

As our data set has already some text or object then we need to set the range for it. And for that, we will use “Selection”. It will automatically select the data in the present sheet.

Code:

Sub

Trim_Data()

Dim

Range

Set

A = Selection

End Sub

For selecting each filled cell of the sheet “For Each” is the function And Value function is used for selecting the value with Trim(Cell) selection.

Code:

Sub

Trim_Data()

Dim

Range

Set

A = Selection

For Each

cell

A cell.Value = WorksheetFunction.Trim(cell)

End Sub

By this, we complete the coding work for creating macro through VBA Trim. Now let’s apply the created code into some tab. For this go to Insert Menu and under Illustrations select Shapes.

From that Shapes option, create any shape using shape formats and styles.

VBA Trim Function – Example #2

VBA Coding shown above can be written in one more way. In the above example, we only trimmed the selected data. In this we will insert the function in the message box as well it will show once the data is trimmed.

Once we do that, we will get the Visual Basic window. Now open a fresh Module and start coding on that page.

Now consider the same code which we have written in example-1. But here for printing a message box with the text we will insert some text.

Sub

Trim_Data2()

Dim

Range

Set

A = Selection

For Each

cell

A cell.Value = WorksheetFunction.Trim(cell)

Dim

String

B = Trim("Trimming Done") MsgBox B

End Sub

Once we are done with writing the code, close the Visual Basic windows.

After that, we will get the button created on the screen.

As we can see above, here our data got trimmed and we can see the message as well of “Trimming Done”.

Pros of Excel VBA Trim Function

We can trim huge sets of data in one shot without checking the number of extra spaces the cells have.

Coding of trimming function is also quite small.

There are very less or no chances that any extra space will get spared.

Things To Remember

Always save the file as Macro-Enabled Worksheet. By doing this, we can use assigned macro multiple time.

Compile the code before assigning it to any button.

There are 2 different ways are shown for creating a button and both can be used as per individuals need or wish.

Consider writing VBA Code as shown in example-2 which will give the message as well.

What Is Data Mart In Data Warehouse? Types & Example

What is Data Mart?

A Data Mart is focused on a single functional area of an organization and contains a subset of data stored in a Data Warehouse. A Data Mart is a condensed version of Data Warehouse and is designed for use by a specific department, unit or set of users in an organization. E.g., Marketing, Sales, HR or finance. It is often controlled by a single department in an organization.

Data Mart usually draws data from only a few sources compared to a Data warehouse. Data marts are small in size and are more flexible compared to a Datawarehouse.

In this tutorial, you will learn-

Why do we need Data Mart?

Data Mart helps to enhance user’s response time due to reduction in volume of data

It provides easy access to frequently requested data.

Data mart are simpler to implement when compared to corporate Datawarehouse. At the same time, the cost of implementing Data Mart is certainly lower compared with implementing a full data warehouse.

Compared to Data Warehouse, a datamart is agile. In case of change in model, datamart can be built quicker due to a smaller size.

A Datamart is defined by a single Subject Matter Expert. On the contrary data warehouse is defined by interdisciplinary SME from a variety of domains. Hence, Data mart is more open to change compared to Datawarehouse.

Data is partitioned and allows very granular access control privileges.

Data can be segmented and stored on different hardware/software platforms.

Types of Data Mart

There are three main types of data mart:

Dependent: Dependent data marts are created by drawing data directly from operational, external or both sources.

Independent: Independent data mart is created without the use of a central data warehouse.

Hybrid: This type of data marts can take data from data warehouses or operational systems.

Dependent Data Mart

A dependent data mart allows sourcing organization’s data from a single Data Warehouse. It is one of the data mart example which offers the benefit of centralization. If you need to develop one or more physical data marts, then you need to configure them as dependent data marts.

Dependent Data Mart in data warehouse can be built in two different ways. Either where a user can access both the data mart and data warehouse, depending on need, or where access is limited only to the data mart. The second approach is not optimal as it produces sometimes referred to as a data junkyard. In the data junkyard, all data begins with a common source, but they are scrapped, and mostly junked.

Dependent Data Mart

Independent Data Mart

An independent data mart is created without the use of central Data warehouse. This kind of Data Mart is an ideal option for smaller groups within an organization.

An independent data mart has neither a relationship with the enterprise data warehouse nor with any other data mart. In Independent data mart, the data is input separately, and its analyses are also performed autonomously.

Implementation of independent data marts is antithetical to the motivation for building a data warehouse. First of all, you need a consistent, centralized store of enterprise data which can be analyzed by multiple users with different interests who want widely varying information.

Independent Data Mart

Hybrid Data Mart:

A hybrid data mart combines input from sources apart from Data warehouse. This could be helpful when you want ad-hoc integration, like after a new group or product is added to the organization.

It is the best data mart example suited for multiple database environments and fast implementation turnaround for any organization. It also requires least data cleansing effort. Hybrid Data mart also supports large storage structures, and it is best suited for flexible for smaller data-centric applications.

Hybrid Data Mart

Steps in Implementing a Datamart

Implementing a Data Mart is a rewarding but complex procedure. Here are the detailed steps to implement a Data Mart:

Designing

Designing is the first phase of Data Mart implementation. It covers all the tasks between initiating the request for a data mart to gathering information about the requirements. Finally, we create the logical and physical Data Mart design.

The design step involves the following tasks:

Gathering the business & technical requirements and Identifying data sources.

Selecting the appropriate subset of data.

Designing the logical and physical structure of the data mart.

Data could be partitioned based on following criteria:

Date

Business or Functional Unit

Geography

Any combination of above

What Products and Technologies Do You Need?

A simple pen and paper would suffice. Though tools that help you create UML or ER diagram would also append meta data into your logical and physical designs.

Constructing

This is the second phase of implementation. It involves creating the physical database and the logical structures.

This step involves the following tasks:

Implementing the physical database designed in the earlier phase. For instance, database schema objects like table, indexes, views, etc. are created.

What Products and Technologies Do You Need?

You need a relational database management system to construct a data mart. RDBMS have several features that are required for the success of a Data Mart.

Storage management: An RDBMS stores and manages the data to create, add, and delete data.

Fast data access: With a SQL query you can easily access data based on certain conditions/filters.

Data protection: The RDBMS system also offers a way to recover from system failures such as power failures. It also allows restoring data from these backups incase of the disk fails.

Multiuser support: The data management system offers concurrent access, the ability for multiple users to access and modify data without interfering or overwriting changes made by another user.

Security: The RDMS system also provides a way to regulate access by users to objects and certain types of operations.

In the third phase, data in populated in the data mart.

The populating step involves the following tasks:

Source data to target data Mapping

Extraction of source data

Cleaning and transformation operations on the data

Loading data into the data mart

Creating and storing metadata

What Products and Technologies Do You Need?

You accomplish these population tasks using an ETL (Extract Transform Load) Tool. This tool allows you to look at the data sources, perform source-to-target mapping, extract the data, transform, cleanse it, and load it back into the data mart.

In the process, the tool also creates some metadata relating to things like where the data came from, how recent it is, what type of changes were made to the data, and what level of summarization was done.

Accessing

Accessing is a fourth step which involves putting the data to use: querying the data, creating reports, charts, and publishing them. End-user submit queries to the database and display the results of the queries

The accessing step needs to perform the following tasks:

Set up a meta layer that translates database structures and objects names into business terms. This helps non-technical users to access the Data mart easily.

Set up and maintain database structures.

Set up API and interfaces if required

What Products and Technologies Do You Need?

You can access the data mart using the command line or GUI. GUI is preferred as it can easily generate graphs and is user-friendly compared to the command line.

Managing

This is the last step of Data Mart Implementation process. This step covers management tasks such as-

Ongoing user access management.

System optimizations and fine-tuning to achieve the enhanced performance.

Adding and managing fresh data into the data mart.

Planning recovery scenarios and ensure system availability in the case when the system fails.

What Products and Technologies Do You Need?

You could use the GUI or command line for data mart management.

Best practices for Implementing Data Marts

Following are the best practices that you need to follow while in the Data Mart Implementation process:

The source of a Data Mart should be departmentally structured

The implementation cycle of a Data Mart should be measured in short periods of time, i.e., in weeks instead of months or years.

It is important to involve all stakeholders in planning and designing phase as the data mart implementation could be complex.

Data Mart Hardware/Software, Networking and Implementation costs should be accurately budgeted in your plan

Even though if the Data mart is created on the same hardware they may need some different software to handle user queries. Additional processing power and disk storage requirements should be evaluated for fast user response

A data mart may be on a different location from the data warehouse. That’s why it is important to ensure that they have enough networking capacity to handle the Data volumes needed to transfer data to the data mart.

Implementation cost should budget the time taken for Datamart loading process. Load time increases with increase in complexity of the transformations.

Advantages

Data marts contain a subset of organization-wide data. This Data is valuable to a specific group of people in an organization.

It is cost-effective alternatives to a data warehouse, which can take high costs to build.

Data Mart allows faster access of Data.

Data Mart is easy to use as it is specifically designed for the needs of its users. Thus a data mart can accelerate business processes.

Data Marts needs less implementation time compare to Data Warehouse systems. It is faster to implement Data Mart as you only need to concentrate the only subset of the data.

It contains historical data which enables the analyst to determine data trends.

Many a times enterprises create too many disparate and unrelated data marts without much benefit. It can become a big hurdle to maintain.

Data Mart cannot provide company-wide data analysis as their data set is limited.

Summary:

Define Data Mart : A Data Mart is defined as a subset of Data Warehouse that is focused on a single functional area of an organization.

Data Mart helps to enhance user’s response time due to a reduction in the volume of data.

Three types of data mart are 1) Dependent 2) Independent 3) Hybrid

Important implementation steps of Data Mart are 1) Designing 2) Constructing 3 Populating 4) Accessing and 5)Managing

The implementation cycle of a Data Mart should be measured in short periods of time, i.e., in weeks instead of months or years.

Data mart is cost-effective alternatives to a data warehouse, which can take high costs to build.

Data Mart cannot provide company-wide data analysis as data set is limited.

Understanding Ai And Robotic Process Automation

It’s no exaggeration to say that the RPA sector – Robotic Process Automation – is a red hot market. Gartner research identifies RPA as the fastest growing sector in all of technology. Many of the top RPA companies are growing rapidly.

Yet despite the benefits of RPA, confusion abounds in the sector. The very idea of having software robots working alongside humans is new, and some companies have struggled to get real ROI. The element of artificial intelligence raises myriad questions. To add clarity, in this webinar we’ll discuss:

Why RPA has become the fastest-growing enterprise software category.

How AI technologies are being combined with RPA, and the various impacts.

The most important attributes of intelligent automation technology in today’s market.

The remarkable future of AI and RPA.

Please join this wide-ranging discussion with three key thought leaders in the RPA sector.

Download the podcast:

Kirkwood: “So originally, we went to see Blue Prism, which is a British company, in fact, they founded, they created the RPA market and category. And then we went to see a small band, and I mean small, it was only seven people in Bucharest in Romania for a company called a Desk Over, and realized, the technology they got could actually be applicable, and so that’s what the team used, and the value of that was so great that I had a road. Well in fact, David and I had a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment and realized that this was the future of automation. Desk Over became UiPath, David set up an organization to do the implementation of RPA, I joined UiPath originally as Chief Operating Officer, and now it’s Chief Evangelist.”

“Why is it moving so fast? A, it’s luck, being in the right place at the right time, and B, it has the flexibility to allow an organization to do a lot of the transformation stuff. And we’ll be careful about what we say about the value of RPA as a transformational tool, but [companies] find it easier to do the transformation stuff, using RPA or at least, make their operations more efficient.”

Poole: “What happened with RPA was the ability to have a step change, where you could get much bigger savings for the right processes, not every process, but the right processes, you could get really big step changes. And the other reason I think an RPA is been so successful is that it’s what I call a generic tool, you can use it pretty much on any process that’s applicable for automation, you can use it in any industry and its application is really broad, you can use it, literally, anywhere that a human would be doing a manual process, you can apply RPA.”

“And I think that’s quite unique and even today as we look at the artificial intelligence space, there’s not any tool that is as broad as an RPA tool in terms of its application. And for me, that’s been the real power of RPA and the reason it accelerated so quickly, because everybody could find a use case for it, if they tried hard enough.”

Cox: The big change is around how work’s gonna happen, just going forward, so many of the boundaries are fallen down here. There used to be tight boundaries around where people work. Obviously those have gone. We’re all at home now, yeah? There were tight boundaries about when people worked. Guess what, now that we’ve all got assorted other jobs going on in our lives, like looking after our kids, those have changed and actually the boundaries around what people do have been torn up as well, and I think that’s where there’s gonna be a lot of excitement and really rapid activity around RPA and intelligent automation around COVID because as you’ve seen it, teams need to flex all around the world.

Poole: “And I think a lot of organizations have been kicked out of inactivity because there’s nothing like a good crisis to drive change and innovation. So I think we’re in that mode now where the pace of change is important and the scale of investment is also important because people are not gonna be thinking about big EP transformations or big system changes and so on.”

“So really what it comes down to is a lack of imagination as to what the art of the possible is. And I think often we find people just not ambitious enough and I think in the work that we’ve been doing with our clients around resilience and a lot of their discussions have been, “Oh, if only we’d gone a bit further. If only we’d actually completely automated the billing process rather than just part automating the billing process.”

Kirkwood: “We’re seeing an increase in the sales and in the organizations that are adopting [RPA]. What we’re tending to see is that there’s a bifurcation in the market, so those organizations that had already started and implemented RPA and internal automation or what got a called Hyper automation. They’ve seen the value of it, they’ve achieved really good returns on the investment.”

“Those organizations that haven’t started, to Dave’s point about being little more timid, those companies that are particularly more on AI rather than RPA – they haven’t achieved their returns in investment or they’re just starting, they’re putting everything on hold.”

Maguire: “Will the Microsoft purchase of self-demotive help drive RPA into smaller businesses?”

Cox: “Yeah, it’s definitely gonna drive into that. It’s gonna be talking bifurcations, there’s gonna be a really interesting bifurcation in the market around it. There’s those who are deploying RPA for transformational change and looking at the whole services and the whole end-to-end automation spectrum. I’m not sure if the Microsoft purchase is gonna have a big impact on that. But there’s the other RPA use case, “The robot for every person” kinda use case. Which is all about individual productivity and desktop productivity and lesser Microsofts are owned for yet the last 20 years and they’re gonna get real focused on that.”

Kirkwood: “First of all, I think that Microsoft moving into the market is a vindication that we’re moving in the right direction. The RPA market is still nascent, it’s still small, it’s really only taken off in the last four years, so for Microsoft to come in, make a purchase of a self-demotive and then drive into that market is a great… A great, great vindication of the potential.”

Maguire: Have there been some serious hold outs among the IT crowd, and people have looked at RPA and said, “This is not proper technology?”

Kirkwood: “Oh, absolutely yeah, I went to a Gartner conference in March 2023. The audience was fairly evenly split between those who were awfully ignorant about RPA, and most were just actively hostile. And because, why on earth use this RPA nonsense when you can do it properly using API’s?”

“Being the number one trend for 2023, that’s a massive turn-around.”

Cox: “I think there has been a lot of confusion around how AI works with RPA, and in most cases the RPA vendors in the marketplace…they’re trying to make sure that you can integrate with the big AI providers, whether that’s AWS or Microsoft or Google.”

“So, you think about most of the AI tools that we talk about are owned by AWS, Microsoft, or Google. And really, you can use any of those things interchangeably, they are microservices that you attach to any tool that you can integrate simply with very simple coding or virtually no coding. And, RPA tools just need to be able to, one way or another, connect with those capabilities.”

“So, basically… I think wherever in the world you need to connect different technologies and you need to manage case work between RPA robots doing things which are repeatable and programmable. Any AI tools which are using especially sort of cognitive capabilities from one vendor or another, frankly.”

Kirkwood: “To put it bluntly, I got famous couple of years ago by saying that AI is nonsense, only nonsense wasn’t the word I used.” [laughter]

“So, we try to make a little bit more understandable by using words, understanding. So, around RPA, you need the things that allow you to do, as David said, automate processes end-to-end, because RPA can’t do that. Which is why Kit’s business is been so successful, it’s about orchestration.”

“But the key understandings are; visual understanding, so the system has to understand everything on the screen regardless of where it is on the screen and exactly the same way that you or I do. There is document understanding, ’cause we’re still waiting around in paper. So, it has to understand what that piece of paper is and what to do with it. Third one is process understanding, that’s really important.”

“And last is conversation understanding. Because increasingly everyone’s using voice rather than keyboards or chatbots.”

“And so that combination, what Gartner call hyper-automation, what everyone else calls intelligent automation is our hyper intelligent automation is the combination of those things.”

COX: “So, I see a couple of things. There’s definitely gonna be more consolidation. The really important parts of the future over the next 15, 18 months, are gonna be all about pace, and really focus on rapidity to live and speed to get live.”

“So I was talking to some economists the other week about… And they produced a report that said across Europe that SMEs, mid-market, big companies, most big companies got an AI strategy. But almost no small business has an AI strategy. And my response to that was, “Well, so my girlfriend’s in a gardening business.” Yeah? She doesn’t have an AI strategy. But she does have a tool that she gives to all of her customers that they can take a photo of a plant and it uses AI to tell them what the plant is. And that’s not having an AI strategy, but that simplification makes it consumable, yeah? And that’s, yeah. I think taking AI out of the hands of the geeks and into the hands of the community. That’s where RPA’s gonna be really useful.”

Maguire: The democratization of AI and RPA.

Poole: “I am convinced that we’re gonna see the uprising of the sitting developer, so the non-technical developer that knows nothing about technology but knows about process, knows what they want, but knows nothing about technology. And I’m not sure any of the RPA firms yet are thinking about that, but I think that that is gonna be absolutely paramount here.”

“It’s not ‘do they have an AI strategy?’ They don’t know strategy. They really do not know where they’re headed. And unless you really know where you’re headed and you know what you want to achieve with technology in general, be it RPA or any other technology, you cannot be effective as an organization. And you cannot be investing wisely, because you don’t know where you’re headed. I mean, it makes sense that if you don’t know where you’re headed, you don’t know what you should be investing in.”

“So I think there’s a lack of strategy as a whole, and that’s what we’re really focused on and helping companies find their technology path through that. And at the end of the day, you’re not necessarily launching huge programs, but thinking about how do you use tools like RPA and orchestration tools to help build, in the next six months, “Can I build something or learn something, or do something that helps me learn about my future state that I’m looking for in my business?”

Kirkwood: “We had a plethora of ERP vendors, but it eventually boiled down to two, which was SAP and Oracle. I think exactly the same thing’s gonna happen within the RPA market over the next two to three years.”

“We thought that the TAM, the total addressable market was large enough to support four or five RPA vendors, because as David said, that there isn’t anywhere that RPA is not applicable if you do it properly. And [the IDC analyst] said, “No, it’s just two. There’s just you, or UiPath and Automation Anywhere, at the moment.” I think Microsoft will come in. They got a magic product that’s coming out, and I can’t tell you what the results are yet, but Microsoft is not a leader.”

“The other thing that I think is gonna happen, and I’ve been predicting this for quite awhile, is that ultimately, probably slightly longer term, all of the stuff that we’ve been describing today will disappear. It will just disappear, not because it’s not gonna get used, but because it’s gonna get used everywhere.”

“That democratization, that simplicity of use, the fact is embedded in just the way in AI, in the plant-identification that Kit mentioned. It will just become a natural part of our day-to-day lives at work and home. And I don’t think there’ll be any indication. So when we talk about a robot for every person, at the moment there’s a robot for every employee. But actually there isn’t any reason why it couldn’t be a robot for every person. Automating bits of your life at home for family and so on that you wanted to.”

“So I think that as organizations recognize that their world is radically changed, not only as a result of COVID but actually being accelerated by COVID, their digital transformation is critical. What you need, as David said, is a strategy to start with, and then RPA and intelligent automation is a tool or tools for that strategy. There is nothing spectacularly special or magical about RPA, in the same way that there is nothing special or magical about shared services and outsourcing 20 years ago. But it just makes things easier and more efficient.”

Maguire: Do you believe RPA is the best technology for companies to get started within the world of automation?

Cox: So I’m gonna say there are two routes that we see have been really successful in, and it entirely depends what your organization looks like at the point that you get going. The most important thing to do is just do something to get going, full stop, because otherwise you can just be paralyzed by, What should I do? Where shall I start?”

“It was, if you’re well-controlled, well-orchestrated across the human workforce, then you can go straight into RPA and other automation technologies ’cause you’ve got the clarity of what’s happening there. If you’re not well-controlled and managed across the human workforce then start with orchestration process mining, task mining to get that side under control ’cause then your automation will be much more successful and much more rapid.”

Maguire: is RPA going write its own RPA?

Kirkwood: “Well, it is gonna write its own RPA, but will only follow the rules that are set for it by humans.”

“Ultimately using machine learning, using other technologies, it will work out what the optimum path is through that route automatically and then write the code for that that will become the robot. So in other words, the person won’t have to do anything but they’ll just do their normal work and the system will then say… The assistant will then say, “Okay, I can automate this process for you now.” That’s self-building robots.”

Update the detailed information about Understanding Excel Vba Data Types (Variables And Constants) on the Cancandonuts.com website. We hope the article's content will meet your needs, and we will regularly update the information to provide you with the fastest and most accurate information. Have a great day!