Is it possible to build such a application using Microsoft Excel or should I stick to googlesheets?

[alpha_2334280]

For a personal project, I am trying to build an application for data collection. This is the idea for the application

1. The user enters data into the spreadsheet template using either an android mobile phone or chrome browser
2. Each week, the user creates a new spreadsheet from the spreadsheet template and uses it for entering the data for that week
3. The application (google spreadsheet currently) then gathers data from multiple spreadsheets created in google drive and enters it into another spreadsheet similar to a dashboard.

Since this is a personal project and I don’t have a lot of time to learn a lot different languages, I am trying to figure out whether it is possible to implement this using Microsoft office excel and its online version (excel online). I have implemented a simpler version of this in google spreadsheet, and I think this is possible to do using google spreadsheet.

However, the sheets have got complex enough that I think I have to start reading up on the google drive API etc.

At work, I am already learning about VBA and excel. So I am wondering if I can just stick to excel and VBA and accomplish this. I think this would have been definitely possible if I was just entering data using my laptop. However, I am wonder if excel online has the functionality to gather data from multiple “Excel online” spreadsheets in a similar fashion as that of google spreadsheets.

Thanks for your help

Jeff

 

[Roderick_E]

Most online systems like google docs don't support macros/vba, just basic formulas

 

[alpha_2334280]

Most online systems like google docs don't support macros/vba, just basic formulas

Thanks for your comment, Roderick..

This is not true, IMO. Have you looked into Google Sheets API or Google Appscript?

Google doesnt use the term "Macro", maybe because of copyright issues with microsoft or because they want to separate themselves. They call it Appscript

here are some links:

https://developers.google.com/sheets/

https://zapier.com/learn/google-sheets/google-apps-script-tutorial/

https://www.quora.com/Can-you-run-macros-on-Google-Sheets

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2942256?co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop&hl=en

https://developers.google.com/apps-script/quickstart/macros

It is probably true that VBA and excel is more powerful, right now, if you want to run these kinds of data analysis on a PC, but if you have multiple devices, running multiple OSes and need to sync between all of them, I was thinking Excel doesnt have the ability to do that yet.

This is based on my research a year or so back, when I started working on this. I wanted to choose Excel at that time, because it would simplify a lot of things, but Excel online could just store number, and a few formulas. It couldnt fetch data from other excel online sheets or anywhere else, like Excel on my laptop could. Google sheets on the other hand does have the functionality and API to do that not just on my phone, but on my laptop too. It maynot be well known, since they are new to the game

i am just wondering if something has changed since then? Perhaps somebody who deals with Excel on multiple devices could give me some insight.

If I do go into the GoogleSheets route or the Excel route, it will be quite a lot of investment of time and money. So I am trying to choose the right language/program etc..