Excel based tool User Guide

Deco99

Hi, I've built a few VBA based tools at work which automate tasks down to clicking of a few buttons. My problem is trying to create a user guide / how to run document that isn't too complicated. I keep ending up with a document that's too long so wondering if anyone knows of any good techniques for getting across the message of how to run and what's happening in background.

28064212

Deco99 wrote: »

Hi, I've built a few VBA based tools at work which automate tasks down to clicking of a few buttons. My problem is trying to create a user guide / how to run document that isn't too complicated. I keep ending up with a document that's too long so wondering if anyone knows of any good techniques for getting across the message of how to run and what's happening in background

Why are you describing what's happening in the background in a user guide? That's information for technical documentation, not something a user needs to know. All a user needs to know is:

• what are the initial conditions?
• what buttons to press?
• what is the output?

Deco99

28064212 wrote: »

Why are you describing what's happening in the background in a user guide? That's information for technical documentation, not something a user needs to know. All a user needs to know is:

• what are the initial conditions?
• what buttons to press?
• what is the output?

Maybe I need to rephrase so. After the tool is run the output needs to be reviewed, so when I say what's happening in background I'm trying to give the user an understanding of how the output is arrived at in order to identify any issues, especially if input files contained incorrect data. But you do raise another issue, I'd be interested to see what people think are good VBA technical documentation templates.

Seth Brundle

Link to a pdf?
Userform pop-up?

beauf

Forget documentation.

Write a second tool that reviews the output and reports common errors. Usually to an error log gets time stamped.

Over the years I've written loads of documentation and massive user guides.
I'd say less than 5% of any of it has ever been read.

These days I write a one page cheat sheet, and then just automate everything.