IDEA: Backup and open file

[wetsmellydog]

An issue at work with an excel spreadsheet that way too many people have access to made me think of this.

Right click a file and be able to copy the file with a time and date stamp to a sub-directory and then open the file.

I believe this would be easier done than to have to put in a macro in the spreadsheet and it could work on all files.

I am sure an AHK script would work but......everyone who accesses this file would have to run AHK which now as I think of it, creates another issue on how to make it work across a network.

Sorry about the monkey wrench at the end 

Thanks,
Larry

[skwire]

I can make a right-click shell extension to do this.  All your users would have to install it, of course.  Acceptable?

[wetsmellydog]

I can make a right-click shell extension to do this.  All your users would have to install it, of course.  Acceptable?

-skwire (November 11, 2010, 12:02 PM)

Hi skwire. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I had finals (which I passed!) and now doing a preceptorship (nursing) which is 12 hours a day.

I actually figured out how to do it simply but should have thought of it sooner. I wrote a batch file which makes a copy and then opens the file. I compiled it into an executable and named it the same as the file as not to confuse the users. The actual file is in another directory so no one can confuse the two.

Thanks for the quick reply as always and again I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

Larry

[skwire]

Cool, thanks for the update.  Congrats on passing your finals, too.   

[Renegade]

Just peeking in here...

Not sure if this is the kind of thing you'd need but here goes...

A program that takes the Excel file association, backs up the file when passed to it, then passes the original Excel file on to Excel. Basically, just intercepting the file.

[wetsmellydog]

A program that takes the Excel file association, backs up the file when passed to it, then passes the original Excel file on to Excel. Basically, just intercepting the file.

-Renegade (November 20, 2010, 10:56 PM)

Close.

The Excel file is on a server. So whatever is done, has to be done on the file on the server and not on the users side. That is why I went the batch file route.
I would have to have all users who access the file have a program local on their computer. Some tele commute at times so it would get messy making sure
everyone had a user side program.