Software or Code to display files in a timed loop

Laneyh

Hi
Sorry if I've posted in the wrong thread - I wasn't too sure where this should go

My company has some BI reports used to monitor events. These reports are currently output to excel
with conditional formatting - Red, Amber, Green

They are now working on a project to output these reports to monitors / TV screens for the operators to
see at a glance what the priority events are.

There are 3 distinct reports being generated - what would be the best way of getting those reports to display on screen in a timed loop.

The reports will constantly regenerate throughout the day, what they would like is for report 1 to display on screen for say 3 minutes, the same with report 2 and report 3. It should scroll between these 3 reports in 3 minute intervals.

Is there some code that code be applied to achieve this or anyone recommend an application which could do this ?

This is for a Windows OS

srsly78

Hacky lazy solution: Just set the background to rotate from a given folder. Then dump your stuff in there as images, overwrite old images with newer ones. Use print to jpeg or whatever to convert your reports into images (very easy with vba ).

Proper solution: As above pretty much but using some gallery/slideshow program. If you convert them into images (make sure to match image size to monitor resolution for best results) then you can display them on any platform, not limited to windows.

Who do I send invoice to?

jgh_

Probably a better solution than outputting to images (because are you suddenly going to expect the people who update those excel sheets to also update the images, or are you going to have to create yet another job to convert them automatically?) would be to

a) (the simple way) setup windows task scheduling to open the excel sheets as needed on whatever timer you want. I'm sure Internet Explorer will open them no problem, and it can probably be configured to continue opening excel sheets in the same window so you dont have to worry about closing stuff.

or

b) Make a webpage that a full-screen browser can hit. Use https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps-help/embed-an-excel-workbook-on-a-web-page-HA102029502.aspx .. win.

PrzemoF

1. Unzip pack.zip to C:/reports (4 files, master and 3 reports)
2. open master.xls
3. enjoy!

Adjust directories, delay, file names in VBA. Also the main loop might be replaced with an infinite or time loop for the real life use.

I didn't bother with relative directories, but it can be done.

Graham

Laneyh wrote: »

Hi
My company has some BI reports used to monitor events. These reports are currently output to excel with conditional formatting - Red, Amber, Green

They are now working on a project to output these reports to monitors / TV screens for the operators to see at a glance what the priority events are.

Other than familiarity, is there any particular reason this is being attempted in Excel? Can the BI system export the raw data?

For some reason, this quote comes to mind: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

I'm not trying to have a go at you LaneyH, I just don't think Excel is the ideal solution.

Can I suggest you approach this from a different angle, how does the following sound:

My company has a BI system that can export data in the following formats: *excel, csv, txt etc. What's the best way to take this data and display it as rotating KPI's on monitors connected to Windows PC's.

*edit as appropriate