The time it takes to calculate a workbook is dependent on which functions you are using. Many times it’s possible to accomplish the same goal using a different function that’s faster. In this post I’ll look at the difference between using vlookup and a combination of match and index.

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I posted an article to codeproject that shows how to create a dynamic view model for WPF that supports enums. It makes it easy to use enums in the model and create list boxes in the UI to allow users to select the value. You can  find the article here.

Managing COM resources in an Office add-in is very important since ignoring it means Excel might not even close with your add-in installed. Ironically C++ is a bit easier this way because Visual Studio can generate wrapper classes for you that take care of releasing the COM objects as long as they are created on the stack or deleted explicitly. You might think that the .Net garbage collector takes care of the objects but it doesn’t entirely, it just frees up the proxy object not the COM resource.

Have you ever wanted to create your own functions in Excel? There are several ways to accomplish this goal, all have their strengths and weaknesses. The options for creating a custom function are listed in the table below. In this post we'll be looking at the easiest option that requires only Excel. The other options are more difficult and time consuming but the advantage is increased speed.

This is the first in a series of posts that will describe how to build an interactive dashboard using Excel without having to use VBA. The reason why not having VBA is important is that the recipient of your dashboard will receive a warning message if your dashboard uses VBA and they have security set to medium or high (which is likely the case).

The result of the series will be the creation of a dashboard providing interactivity similar to what is possible in a web or desktop application.