Hi everyone I am new here and I need someone to point me in the right direction with regards to this project I am thinking of doing for my business. I want to set up a form for customers to fill out on the tablet (android) and once they hit enter the tablet automatically updates the excel database. This project will help remove the need for paper records and make us more sustainable. I have almost zero coding experience and I would like to use this project to learn more. I am currently learning some VBA for excel and I know how to do the form from there but I found out that VBA doesn’t work on tablets (unless its windows or something) any ideas on what programming language I need for this?
I saw a video of someone using pdf forms and excel VBA but this wont work on a tablet. I was thinking of somehow using an html form, but I have never used html before so I have no idea if im on the right track or not.
anything to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated
Hi @moatis1 there are a lot of ways to do it. If you don’t want to code something you can look for a solution like google docs or smartsheet as example. There are tons of ready to use solutions for your problem already out there.
However to code something for your own is in my opinion the “best” solution for some reasons.
- You own your solution
- You decide how it works
- You can improve on it later on without hassle
- You’ll learn a new skill (a very handy skill)
But if you have no coding experience it will be a steep learning curve. You have to put a lot of dedication and work in it that requires hours and days of reading, learning and building. If you have a hacker mindset and are good in plug and play things you find on the internet it probably will go faster.
A good start would be to read Learn Python the Hard Way or Learn Ruby the Hard Way. Both books have some exercises on the end that involve a “Web Framework” (Flask for Python and Sinatra for Ruby). With any of these you should be able to accomplish what you have in mind (and much more).
Happy coding!
Kind regards
Didier