Maybe template

[Guest]

I need my users to open a certain spreadsheet from one shared location let
say L:\spreadsheet.xls
but for them to save their data on another location- let say their C drive.
And of course each time they open L:\spreadsheet.xls it will go and fetch
their data from their C drive.

Any idea?

 

[Guest]

I can understand that you want them to start off with a template, yes. Once
they have saved the file on their own PC's hard drive, surely they could just
open that file? No need to increadse traffic on the network, since you in
any case want them to use their own data? You are trying to complicate a
simple excercise, or am I just confused here?

 

[Guest]

Kassie,
The problem is that there is a lot of users and there will be updates to the
spreadsheet in te future , so it is a deployment problem.

 

[Guest]

I would suggest an email, in the event of an update? To start moving data
hither and thither every time someone opens a file, is to beg for serious
problems! "Fetching their data" would in any case result in your new format
being overwritten, back to what it was before!

 

[Guest]

That does not even start to answer my question. never mind I will have to
find a solution somewhere else.
:-(

 

[Dave Peterson]

You could keep the file a .xls file and mark it readonly so the users can't
overwrite that file.

You could put the "template" file on a folder that the users only have read
access to--so they can't save to this drive/folder.

You could create a real template (.xlt) and add a macro to the auto_open routine
that checks to see if the file has been saved. If not, it could pop up a
file|saveas dialog.

I'm not sure how you could ever enforce the "must be saved to the C: drive",
though. Users will save to floppies, USB drives, Network drives, ...

I think the best you can do is make it easy to save to the C: drive.

I don't know what the fetch data from the c: drive means. If you mean links to
other files, you'll have to come up with something (training???) that shows the
users how to use Edit|Links|Change source.

If you mean via a macro, you could just point to where you want.