Old DOS to Excel ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Sorry if this probably isn't the correct group, but I have an old DOS
employee scheduler, and would like to convert it to Excel. Is that possible,
and if so, how would I go about getting it converted. I have no idea in what
language it was written in.

Thanks in advance,

Steve
 
See if the DOS program will allow you to save the data as delimited
text (comma, tab, etc). Excel will understand this kind of format.
 
How would I do that ? It's been years since I used DOS commands, and even
then, it was very basic stuff.
 
So you only have the file? I meant to see if such an option was
available in the original software. I don't know what the software
is, so I couldn't tell you.

If not, you can try to see if the format will be recognized by Excel.
You can also try opening the file in Notepad and see if it's readable
text - if so, Excel might still be able to assist you in your task.
 
No, not that I'm aware of . Just a 61 KB size file. It's basically a day off
scheduler.

I indicate that , e.g., I need 7 employees on Sat, 3 on Sun, 8 on Mon, etc.,
and it provides a work schedule such as 2 have Sat/Sun off, 5 have Sun/Mon
off, 6 have Mon/Tue off, etc.

Thanks,
 
If you already have data in the program, but you cannot find its data
file (or if it keeps it within the exe, which is also possible), you
won't be able to import that data into Excel. However, if you want to
build a scheduler in Excel that does something similar, that's
entirely possible. However, I would suggest you look into using
software like Microsoft Project or something.

You can set up a spreadsheet that lists employees and their days off.

Name Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
xxxxx off off
xxxxx off off


Then, using a formula, you can have the number of employees
available. Supposing in the above example column B is mondays, this
will give you the number of employees who are off:

=COUNTIF($B:$B,"off")

This will give you the number of employees available on Monday:

=COUNTA($A:$A)-COUNTIF($B:$B,"off")-1

You can have another worksheet where you use a combination of MATCH()
and OFFSET() functions to calculate what you have available, what
you're using, and what's remaining.

Hope that helps at all. At the very least it will get you started.
 
Thanks for the advise. I'll give it a shot, but I don't hold out much hope,
as I know it's going to be way beyond my skills. The original file has built
in at overtime % if desired to use, and an unscheduled % to use if desired.
Also, it will prioritize consecutive days off, however, it gives you the
option to accept non-consecutive days off, or decline that option, and builds
the schedules required accordingly. And, to add another 'beyond me' aspect,
if you accept non-consecutive days off, it will always make Sunday one of the
days off, e.g. Sun/Wed or Sun/Thurs. All the above is why I was hoping there
would be a way to convert the existing DOS file to Excel, but I guess that's
not going to be possible.

Thanks again for all your patience and advise.

Steve
 
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