The data came from this report came from a complex query using SQL server and Access that had this format:

Some options I investigated and tried (be sure to read this page, you might find many more):

• Google’s Chart API (http://code.google.com/apis/chart/types.html): you can embed these in Google spreadsheets, create HTML pages using Excel via VBA, or embed them in Excel sheets. Alas, none would work the way I would like them to work: In-cell graphics
• Use Sparklines for Excel add-in: this add-in will create great in-cell charts (bar, bullet graphs, sparklines, etc), but copying them down is difficult and resource intensive, and any change you make in the column size will alter the shape of that chart. In addition, I had more than 400 rows to populate–these would be too many objects in a spreadsheet for Excel to handle. My machine froze when I tried to copy it for 10 rows.
• Use R’s implementation by Jason Dieterle (search on this page for Jason Dieterle (email), January 28, 2008. Works very good. I modified the code to print max and mins only, but the function generates a graphic, which needed to be embeded in LaTex file. It did not work nicely. Charts were too big to fit in a cell of a table.
• Create bar charts in Excel using REPT function. I tried different font sizes and styles, but it didn’t look pretty, for the range of data varied. (Hint: make the alignment of text 90, use pipe signs, create columns and graphs for each data value, remove gridlines, keep the columns very close. It almost worked.)
• Use spark package for LaTex, doesn’t work in pdflatex, and you have to play a lot with the settings
• Use sparklines package for LaTex. Problem was that data needed to be normalized (or scaled) from 0 to 1, and needed extra parameters for min and max points. Solution: create a normalize function in Excel, and write a big formula to produce the exact needed string for the sparklines to work i.e.:
  \begin{sparkline}{5}
\sparkdot 1 1 blue
\sparkdot 0.2 0 red
\spark 0.2 0 0.4 0.0625 0.6 0.5625 0.8 0.75 1 1 /
\end{sparkline}

Here’s the normalize function:

Public Function Normalize(cell2Normalize As Range, WholeRng As Range)
       Normalize = (cell2Normalize.Value - WorksheetFunction.Min(WholeRng)) / (WorksheetFunction.Max(WholeRng) - WorksheetFunction.Min(WholeRng))
End Function

Here’s the big formula to convert the range for data values from 2005 to 2009 (in the range E2:I2) to the sparkline LaTex environment.

="\begin{sparkline}{5} " & "\sparkdot " & CHOOSE(MATCH(MAX(E2:I2),E2:I2,0),0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8,1) & " " & 1 & " blue " & "\sparkdot " & CHOOSE(MATCH(MIN(E2:I2),E2:I2,0),0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8,1) & " " & 0 & " red " & " \spark 0.2 " & Normalize(E2,E2:I2) & " 0.4 " & Normalize(F2,E2:I2) & " 0.6 " & Normalize(G2,E2:I2) & " 0.8 " & Normalize(H2,E2:I2) & " 1 " & Normalize(I2,E2:I2) & " / \end{sparkline}"

This last option worked beautifully. I dragged the formula down. I selected the data, and clicked on “Convert Table to LaTex” button (using this add-in). Copied the LaTex code to clipboard and pasted it in my LaTex editor. Manually merged the rows for colleges (using \multirow), and generated a beautiful looking pdf.

I was very happy. Printed it in color. Got a request back very soon that there should be total rows.

I forgot about the sparklines and created a report in Access with plain old numbers in less than 15 mins. Gave it back.

I tried to repeat this – Sparkline in Cognos -in Access with no luck.

(I later tried it one more time: Got the data in Excel using External data> Access, created a pivottable with rows and all, did some formatting, copied and pasted values and formats, inserted sparkline code, converted it to LaTex, copied and pasted in LaTex editor, and here’s the beautiful looking sample pdf of 16)

I wish there were simple reporting solutions that included awesome data visualization tools. (BTW, Excel 2010 will have sparklines: link) For this report, I did try Sweave, R, and LaTex, but because of the time constraints I could not investigate it further.

Please comment if you know any other way which meet (or don’t, Tableau is certainly one) these conditions: inexpensive (read free), efficient, and repeatable.

Access to the VB project is not trusted

You can turn this message off by going to Developer tab in the ribbon and then clicking on the Macro security button, and checking the check box for “Trust access to the VBA project object model.”

A word of caution: be wary of the add-ins/projects that need VBA access. Don’t allow any project/add-in with VBA access, unless you know its exact purpose or the author of that project.

Here’s the code for t-test:

'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : TTESTM
' DateTime  : 10/29/2008 08:35
' Author    :
' Purpose   : To get the t-stat value when comparing two means with an optional input
'               for equal or unequal variances
'               by default the function assumes that the user is comparing means with unequal variances
' davg1 is the mean of first sample
' dcnt1 is the sample size of sample 1 
' dvar1 is the variance of first samaple 
' davg2 is the mean of second sample
' dcnt2 is the sample size of sample 2 
' dvar2 is the variance of second samaple 
' blnEqVar set TRUE to assume equal variance for the test
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Public Function TTESTM(davg1 As Double, dcnt1 As Double, dvar1 As Double, davg2 As Double, dcnt2 As Double, dvar2 As Double, Optional blnEqVar As Boolean = False) As Double
 
On Error GoTo TTESTM_Error
Dim dResult As Double, dNumer As Double, dDenon As Double, dPooledVar As Double
 
dNumer = davg1 - davg2
 
'if equal variances are not assumed
'http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/eda353.htm
If Not blnEqVar Then
	dDenon = Sqr((dvar1 ^ 2 / dcnt1) + (dvar2 ^ 2 / dcnt2))
Else
'if equal variances are assumed, then calculated the pooled variance
	dPooledVar = Sqr((((dcnt1 - 1) * dvar1 ^ 2) + ((dcnt2 - 1) * dvar2 ^ 2)) / (dcnt1 + dcnt2 - 2))
	dDenon = dPooledVar * Sqr((1 / dcnt1) + (1 / dcnt2))
End If
 
dResult = dNumer / dDenon
 
TTESTM = dResult
Exit Function
 
TTESTM_Error:
	TTESTM = Null
 
End Function

Code for degrees of freedom

'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : DOFTTESTM
' DateTime  : 10/29/2008 08:50
' Author    :
' Purpose   : To get the degrees of freedom for the t-test when comparing two means with an optional input
'               for equal or unequal variances
'               by default the function assumes that the user is comparing means with unequal variances

' dcnt1 is the sample size of sample 1 
' dvar1 is the variance of first samaple 
' dcnt2 is the sample size of sample 2 
' dvar2 is the variance of second samaple 
' blnEqVar set TRUE to assume equal variance for the test
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'
Public Function DOFTTESTM(dcnt1 As Double, dvar1 As Double, dcnt2 As Double, dvar2 As Double, Optional blnEqVar As Boolean = False) As Double
 
Dim dResult As Double, dNumer As Double, dDenon As Double
 
On Error GoTo DOFTTESTM_Error
'if equal variances are not assumed, then use a complicated formula to compute degrees of freedom
'http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/eda353.htm
If Not blnEqVar Then
	dNumer = ((dvar1 ^ 2 / dcnt1) + (dvar2 ^ 2 / dcnt2)) ^ 2
	dDenon = ((dvar1 ^ 2 / dcnt1) ^ 2 / (dcnt1 - 1)) + ((dvar2 ^ 2 / dcnt2) ^ 2 / (dcnt2 - 1))
	dResult = dNumer / dDenon
Else
	dResult = dcnt1 + dcnt2 - 2
End If
 
DOFTTESTM = dResult
 
Exit Function
 
DOFTTESTM_Error:
	DOFTTESTM = Null
 
End Function

Here’s my code for uppercase conversion:
(If you want to convert your text to lowercase, replace Ucase with Lcase function in the code)

One repetitive use I found is to create OR/AND conditions for Access queries. I copy-paste the field values of a column from Access, do some filtering and my conditions are ready. Then I use this concatfunc to create a string to use in my Access query.

For example, look at this print screen:

The Range A1:A4 houses the string condition I want to use in my Access query to restrict the fruits from my data. In cell B1 I have the formula

, and the return string from this function is listed in cell B1.

Now, all you have to do is copy and paste this in Access criteria and put a quotation mark at the start and at the end of this string.

I have found one more use of this when I want to store some values in an Array, using the Array function in VBA.

One more print screen:

In this example, I insert a comma (CHAR(44) instead of string OR, and this function returns a string that I can use in VBA to store these values in an array using Array function, after adding a quotation mark, of course, at the start and at the end.

This can very well be designed using forms, but this should get one started. Use Alt + F11 to see the code, then execute procedure ConvertTbl2Arff to convert a table.

Some highlights of this procedure
- Takes care of spaces in Attribute name and data values
- Finds unique values of nominal variables
- Assigns equivalent ARFF datatype
- Replaces missing values with question marks