Today I needed code within Excel that would delete a row based on

a certain criteria. For example, I export a bunch of data and I want

rows that contain "BAD" removed in a column's cell. I want the entire

row removed and not just the cell's content.

IE: A                B                 C

1 CompanyA     Address  GOOD

2 CompanyB     Address  BAD

3 CompanyC     Address  GOOD

I found some code out on the Internet that looked like the

following but no explanation on what the number, letters, etc

stood for. So I had to tweak it and wanted to pass on how these

numbers work together to get the desired result. I wanted to

break this down so people can manipulate for what they want

and it may not be entirely correct but did work for me. Feel

free to contribute if you like and know more about this subject

than what is shown here.

This was done in a MACRO using VB:

Sub DeleteWeird()
  For i = Range("A65536").End(xlUp).Row To 1 Step -1
    If Cells(i, 3).Value = "BAD" Then
       Rows(i).Resize(1).Delete
    ElseIf Cells(i, 3).Value = "BAD" Then
       Rows(i).Resize(1).Delete
    End If
  Next
End Sub

The SUB and END SUB  names the function and ends it. That

is easy.

For i = Range("A65536").End(xlUp).Row To 1 Step -1

What this does is takes the entire range of an excel workbook

goes to the end where the data starts and works backwards.

The To 1 Step -1 means to only do one row at a time when searching.

The -1 means it will work backwards from the last row up. The inital

example that I worked with had a 3 where the 1 is at and it was

reading every 3rd record and was very confusing. But there are times

you may need this functionality because you have a large data set

and the criteria always happens on every 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc row.

If Cells(i, 3).Value = "BAD" Then

What this does is it looks at the cells for each indexed row(i) and the

3rd column in the excel sheet (Column C). So depending on where

your criteria is the value at 3 would change to the column you want

to look at. The .Value I beleive is a reserve word in Excel with the

quotes around BAD is the criteria I want to be removed. I have two

IF here which can be done to look at multiple criteria but I just used

BAD for both.

Rows(i).Resize(1).Delete

What this does is take the (i) row you are on and deletes it by 1. You can

do some neat things in here where you can delete multiple rows at once.

For example, rows(i-2).resize(3).Delete would delete the current row and

the next 2 above it . Helpful when you have scattered rows with different

information on them or between them that you do not want. This would

delete 3 rows total I beleive.

I received the original code from the following source.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Excel-1059/Deleting-rows-formula.htm

I was asked by a prospective client how to get the 

organization to "buy in" to a new software package. 

It raises several interesting issues in that this 

buy in mentality is normally driven by outside 

influence or perceptions about change rather than 

the software's own ability to make life easier, more 

productive, efficient, etc. Most people that do not 

adapt do so because they are either scared of the

new technology, job security, or feel they do not 

have the knowledge to use it. There are several ways 

to address each one of these and the way you address 

it is different from one another.

Knowledge Area:

The knowledge area of the equation is simply the person 

does not know the enough about the software to make an

intelligent choice, question or comment. This comes 

down to teaching the person more about the system in a

non-condescending way so that they can grasp the concepts

in the most efficient way. It also helps that the person 

doing the teaching knows the system inside and out be-

cause it gives the "student" the feeling of comfort when

looking at the system. People that work in the teaching

field would be indispensable at this type of structure 

because they know how to teach a class and know different

techniques. The other reason the person should be very

familiar with the system is most people that are hard to 

change will try to find any reason a new software package

does not work. For example, one error comes up on the 

screen the "student" will be sure to point that out if 

the teacher does not know how to address the error.

Job Security:

The issue of job security is a huge one especially in 

these times of economic turmoil and politicians that don't

know what they are doing. This issue also effect different

industries. For example, the church industry probably 

would not see this except in very large churches which 

is only about 5% of the churches whereas a manufacturing

plant may downsize after implementing a machine that 

does the same work as most of the workers. The best way 

to address this is to be honest with people. If they are

going to lose their job or be moved tell them ahead of 

time before the technology comes in to play. They will

respect you more even though they are losing their jobs.

There is a huge misconception out there to just fire them

on a Friday with no warning and this is a bad practice 

among most employers because just like the CEO's have to 

keep the business a float the worker is the CEO of the

household and needs to keep it a float. The advantage

that the CEO of the company has is that he knows trouble 

is coming months or even years before it hits by looking 

at a financial statement where the employee knows nothing 

until that Friday when the company turns his/her world up 

side down. I think employers are going to eventually find 

themselves in bad times because eventually workers will 

revolt like in the old days. It is just going to take a 

recession where people are bad off and are tired of 

employers running everything. Personally I do wish 

this would happen but I will keep my own feelings to 

a minimum here.

Scared About New Technology:

Most people are scared of the unknown. If you make 

the unknown to them "known" then the uneasiness goes 

away. The knowledge area and this area sort of work 

hand in hand. As people become more knowledgeable the 

less scared they will be and the more comfortable they 

become. There will always be one or two people that 

do not change no matter what you do. But as they 

see other people adapting to change that will speak 

volumes to them if these same people were initially 

against the software. Another option may be to put the

older software against the new software performing 

the same task. I do want to caution here in that you

want to ensure that you test these out first before

presenting them to the user and the older software 

performs better. Newer technology should never hinder 

a task more than a older technology.

I have also found that webinars work well when presented 

by the vendor to the people that are hard to change. 

The software vendor are the resident experts in these 

areas and can normally address any question that arises 

instantly. If they cannot than get another software vendor

because they are not going to be of much help if they

don't know enough about their own product to answer questions

in a timely manner or offer other solutions.

Definition: ActiveX Control - is a small computer program
that is plugged into a compliant application (commonly called
a plugin), which provides added functionality for the user.
An example of an ActiveX control is bar code printing that
certain application can do or photo uploading to web sites.

When software companies design systems, there is one very
important concern and that is, how to reduce the vulnerability
of that application so that the data is not compromised?
Among all the different plugins that had vulnerabilities in
2007, 89% of them were ActiveX controls. Detailed information
can be found about this at the following link and also suggest
some recommended procedures to protect the organization's data:

http://www.computerworld.com/click here

There are many systems (including Church Management Systems)
that use ActiveX controls to make their systems function properly
for clients. These are used mostly on the client side (user's PC)
of the system and if the ActiveX control being used has a
vulnerability it infects the user's PC. When this happens it
normally goes unnoticed by the user and when it is found that
there is a virus or other type of infection it takes time and
other resources to remove and clean the system. It also can damage
data that sometimes could never be replaced but instead has to be
recreated on the system. When Icon Systems developed IconCMO for
churches we designed the system not to use this type of control
because of reoccurring issues with them in regards to security
flaws.

If you want to know more about IconCMO please visit us at our website
www.iconcmo.com

RIA changes the way business is conducted for the future!

Having a RIA (Rich Internet Application) application is important
because it offers the users the ability to be platform independent
among other benefits. For example, you can have users on different
operating systems like Windows, MAC, Linux, Unix, etc and still
only have one application that is shared between them and is
accessible by all. The definition of RIA is as follows: It is a fully
featured software package that runs in a browser and behaves just
as if it was running locally on a PC/MAC (Example of Browsers:
Internet Explorer, Fire fox, Sea Monkey, etc). The RIA platform
makes it possible to develop applications with the look and feel of
a full-fledged Windows or Mac application, making them faster and
more convenient to use for the user.

Benefits of using software services based on RIA concepts:

1. Everything needed for an application a user can find within the
application.The RIA platform allows software companies to develop
applications that are contained in one container for users on the
system that have various different tasks.  For example, IconCMO can
have membership related task that also include contributions and
fund based accounting in the system and only allow the appropriate
people access to these functions.

2. The applications are platform independent.  For example, the
application can run on MAC's, Linux or any of the Window operating
systems with the appropriate browser.  No longer is the organization
restricted by the type of computer they buy for their users and the
users are not restricted at home where they may be doing work for the
church as volunteers.  They can run any of the common operating systems
that are found in today's market.

3. Standardization of the user's interface in the browser.  The user
knows that if the text on their screen is a different color that this
means they can click on it to view more information about that specific
item on the screen.  It works similar to web sites that people browse on
everyday, therefore reducing the training that is needed for other PC
based software that is proprietary and hard to navigate.

4.  When a user interacts with the system and goes from one part of the
system to another, they do not lose the information they were working
on unless they refresh the screen themselves.  All the interaction with
the system is on their PC and the results from that interaction submitted
to the server. This is the true power of the RIA architecture for the system.

In summary, Icon Systems uses this type of architecture because
we wanted to bring a desktop experience but at the same time make
it so churches and their users can use the software no matter where
they are located at by using the Internet.

Please review our products and demos at www.iconcmo.com

1. PC Based Church Management Systems are applications that
run locally within the physical confinement of the organization.
They can be ran on a network within that organization. The
organization is left to maintain this software and hardware
using their own IT staff or hiring computer specialist to fix
systems that are broke which can be costly for the organization.

2. Hybrid Church Management Systems are a mixture of an Internet
based system and Windows based system. At first glance this
may look like it is the best of both worlds but certain deficiencies
usually arise from such an architecture.  For example:  Any
updates to one system usually need to be reflected on the other
system as well.  This means you have to code every change twice.
Once for the PC based system and once for the web based system.
This causes an increase in time for development with a greater
possibility of error.

Changes done on the PC, commonly called the client's side, must
be uploaded to the Internet server.   Changes that are completed
on the Web must also be downloaded to the local database.  Someone
must monitor all changes to the Web system and approve of the
changes that were made and download them to the PC based system.
If the two systems, web and pc, contain changes to the same record
than the administrator must decide which change to keep and make
adjustments to the record after the synchronization process.  Most
companies that offer this as an option have very limited items that
can actually be uploaded and changed from the web.  Icon Systems
advises potential clients to ask companies which features are
available via the web and which ones are only available on the PC
at the church.

3. Web Based Church Management System are sometime referred to as
SaaS (Software as a Service). This is when the organization pays a
company to host the application for them. There are several advantages
of this architecture. When a company hosts the application for the
organization all updates, nightly backups, server hardware and
software costs are eliminated.  All the organization needs is a PC
and an Internet connection. If a change is needed the change can be
made once and all clients will have immediate access to the new
feature.  No upload process from a pc based system hinders the accuracy
of the data.  Reports are immediate and current with the most updated
information at all times.

IconCMO uses a complete Web Based system to ensure our clients
are using the latest technology and get the most updated
information at their fingertips. 

Please review our products at www.iconcmo.com

Icon Announces Approval for IconCMO Accounting package!

Icon Systems has released a software package that is an extension to 

IconCMO for churches. This package has the ability to track finances,

people, contributions, accounting, etc for an entire denominations that 

have 5 or less levels to them. For more information on this great 

package please visit http://www.iconcmo.com/products/iconcmoplus

The system will allow the denomination to compile reports and graphs

at a click of a mouse for their regions. This saves all the churches time 

from compiling data over several weeks, than sending it the head office

which than has to compile the data from all the churches. 

As always Icon Systems thanks all our current clients and prospective 

clients for checking out our new services at www.iconcmo.com. 

IconCMO Announces Payroll

It is an exciting time at www.iconcmo.com because we are releasing payroll this year

that will work with our fund accounting system. The system will allow separate rate 

cards for each person and a person can have as many as they want. An example of

this may be that a person's deductions are different for the first part of the month

versus the later part of the month. It will also produce the reports for the church that

will allow them to fill out the government forms when needed and pay these entities.  

For more information contact us at 1-800-596-4266. Our website is www.iconcmo.com