I've been checking out the forum a bit and there seems to be some really knowledgeable people, so I thought I'd pose a question.

 

I've created an Excel add-in using VSTO, and I'm hoping to add report capability to this. To be brief; most of the work is done off of one workbook, but there is another workbook that contains data going back to 2007. There's a spreadsheet in that workbook for every month of 2007, a summary spreadsheet for 2007, a spreadsheet for every month of 2008, a 2008 summary, every month of 2009, and so on.

 

I want the user to be able to click a button, and pull, for example, an 'Invoices' report. They can then choose to view the summarized data for a single month (Salesperson, product, etc.), or view the summarized data for 2 months and compare them. Also, the ability to view the data for a single month, and also offer comparisons for 1 mo, 3mo, and 6mo ago would be amazing.

 

Now, while I feel I could figure this out, my problem comes when we get to information that hasn't been created yet. I want this to be able to last for a while, so I need to be able to plan for the future (months for 2010, 2011, etc). This is what I'm not sure how to do. How can I code and design a report to take care of data that hasn't happened yet? As far as pulling the data, I can simply disable or hide the options until that month has come, but I want to go about this the smartest way.

 

I hope that's clear. Any help or a point in the right direction would be appreciated!

 

Oh, and as far as using excel as a database; I know there are much better options, but this is what I'm stuck with for the time being :)

 

 

Thanks!

 

S.

 

Just supply the user with a list of the spreadsheets available for comparison, and as the new tabs are created each month, add them to the list.

 

Thanks for the help!