Is it possible to create a path to Excelfiles with VBA? - excel

Question

I am building a report on Excel that has to be updated monthly. Therefore I get every month a new Excelfile with data that has to be summarized in the report.
The report consists of the calculations of the specific Excelfiles with the data for each month, for example the amount of male or female customers.
Is it possible to create a macro via VBA that creates a path to the new Excelfile so that I do not have to change the path to the file manually? In this case for example instead that I have to change the formula to '...non_activated-2019-03' by typing it in, Excel should do it automatically because there are over 60 of these calculations in which I would have to change the file.
=COUNTIFS('C:\Users\denni\Desktop\Reporting\Non Activated\[non_activated-2019-02.xlsx]non_activated-2019-02'!$M:$M;$B$9;'C:\Users\denni\Desktop\Reporting\Non Activated\[non_activated-2019-02.xlsx]non_activated-2019-02'!$B:$B;$C10)

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible and I do it myself when I need to create reports and log files. Just add the following in your filename String:
filename = "...non_activated-" & Year(Date) & "-" & Month(Date)
Month Number with 0
If you want the month number to start with 0, you can simply change the code like this:
Sub yourSub()
'...
filename = "...non_activated-" & Year(Date) & "-" & getMonthNumber(Date)
'...
End Sub
Function getMonthNumber(data As Date) As String
If Month(data) < 10 Then
getMonthNumber = "0" & Month(data)
Else
getMonthNumber = Month(data)
End If
End Function
Open your file
There're a lot of ways to open (and write on) your file. You can try this:
Open yourPath & yourFilename For Output As #1
Print #1, "Print somenthing on your file"
'Do your stuff
Close #1
Now you have your file saved on your path.
Notes
By using this method, every month it creates automatically a new file which you can easily find.
Just remember to check if the file exists, otherwise it can launch
an exception.

Answer 2

You could use a function like so in a cell, on a sheet, then reference the cell in formulas, then leave them alone.
For example =GetLatestImportFile("C:\workspace\dummy data\")
Function GetLatestImportFile(strPath As String, _
Optional strLookFor As String = "non-activated")
Dim f As Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim fld As Scripting.Folder
Dim fl As Scripting.File
Dim dt As Date
Set f = New Scripting.FileSystemObject
Set fld = f.GetFolder(strPath)
For Each fl In fld.Files
If InStr(1, fl.Name, strLookFor) > 0 Then
If fl.DateCreated > dt Then
dt = fl.DateCreated
GetLatestImportFile = fl.Name
End If
End If
Next fl
set f=nothing
set fld=nothing
set fl=nothing
End Function

Answer 3

So for now this code is doing quite well and replaces the old reference with the new one!
Sub MySub()
Dim old as String
Dim new as String
Dim i as Integer
old = "activated-2019-01"
new = "activated-2019-02"
For i=4 to 160
Cells(i,"E").FormulaLocal = Replace(Cells(i,"F").FormulaLocal, old, new)
Next i
End Sub