Quick Guide to getting your Excel Spreadsheet Online

If you have some useful Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that are loaded with functionality, but are not fully available through Office 365 and Excel online then this short guide is for you.

 

Why is it not fully functional through Excel online?

Office 365 provides you with the most recent version of Office programs, there is however a desktop version of Excel and an online version. The desktop version is backward compatible, meaning it fully supports VBA macros, which is the technology that is used to implement application-like functionality within Excel. VBA is powerful and very easy to get started with and is widely spread within most industries.  Here is the catch, Excel online doesn’t support VBA. The spreadsheet will still open, but all VBA macros will be disabled. Simple as that really.

What has Microsoft replaced VBA with?

Microsoft provide 2 different methods in which functionality within Excel can be implemented, Apps for Office and Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). Without getting into the tech too much, these are more current technologies. They do however present a bigger barrier to entry because whilst almost anyone could quite quickly learn to put together a VBA macro, these 2 new technologies require some form of understanding of software development and the respective languages.

What are your options?

VBA is not going away overnight, it’s too widely used for that, however it does make sense to at some point make the transition to the newer tech and take advantage of the features that they have to offer. These new technologies can improve the stability, performance and usability of your spreadsheet and also reduce the time it takes to make amendments or implement new features. If you prefer to put the change off for a while, another solution can be too run the spreadsheet somewhere on a permanent basis and only share the relevant data via Excel Online, which is achievable via 3^rd party tools. If you would like assistance with migrating your Excel applications to Excel online or making use of tools to share your data securely online, then get in touch and we would be happy to help.

George Toursoulopoulos is a technology specialist and CEO of Synetec, one of the UK’s leading providers of bespoke software solutions.

Synetec Looking for Full-Stack Application Developer

Synetec is a growing software development firm that builds bespoke, business-critical systems for some of the UK's most interesting organisations. The company is expanding and we’re in need of talented software engineers at all experience levels to work across the development stack.

You’ll be surrounded by smart, highly-capable people in a collaborative environment that encourages the sharing of knowledge and experience. You’ll be as passionate as the rest of us are about doing software engineering right, and ultimately delivering great solutions to our clients. We follow an Agile approach with solid development practices, and encourage picking up new skills and expanding your experience.

We’re more interested in finding great people to join our motivated team than in hiring experts in any specific technology. We are looking for creative and self-motivated problem solvers with a demonstrable passion for technology.

You should have:

• C# 
• MVC
• REST API Development
• SQL (MSSQL, PostgreSQL or Oracle)
• ORM (Entity Framework or Nhibernate)
• A JavaScript Web Framework (Angular, React, Node)

It would also be great if you have:

• Experience of a cloud platform such as AWS or Azure
• NoSQL Databases 
• WebAPI 
• Mobile App Dev (ReactNative or Xamarin) 

All candidates should have UK work experience and the necessary passport or visas to work indefinitely within the UK.

NO AGENTS PLEASE

Applicants must register their interest and email through their CV's to careers@synetec.co.uk

Job Role for New Business Development Manager

Company Profile

Synetec is a growing software development firm previously targeting primarily the Financial Services sector and now expanding into other industries. We are a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider and cover most areas of software development. In addition we also provide support for new and legacy systems to a number of clients.

Due to a new service offering we are looking for a Business Development Manager who wants to join an exciting and talented team working in a personal and growing environment where they can help grow Synetec to the next level.

Candidate Profile

The successful candidate is skilled and experienced in finding and winning new business within the software development services space. They will have a proven track record in closing and be completely confident in generating or assessing the marketplace to identify sales leads. They would be excited by the prospect of building on their existing network within the software development services or financial services industry sector.

They will be someone who doesn’t want to be just a number in a team within a larger company, but will thrive in the personal environment of a smaller company where a big part can be played in the continued growth and they can share in that growth.

Essential Job Functions:

• ·         Develop and execute a new business strategy
• ·         Create and maintain a sales pipeline that supports your sales targets
• ·         Grow the network of referral partners
• ·         Meet defined lead generation targets
• ·         Meet defined revenue targets
• ·         Autonomously source and develop your own prospects and opportunities
• ·         Consistent attendance of relevant events for networking
• ·         Compose compelling proposals
• ·         Identify prospects requirements and align with relevant products/services
• ·         Build relationships with senior level prospects by gaining insight into their businesses to enable you to provide solutions for their requirements
• ·         Maintain a strong understanding of relevant service offering and technology landscape
• ·         Create and maintain our personal weekly sales plan
• ·         Keep CRM system updated with all your activity
• ·         Reporting on sales, customer and market intelligence updates
• ·         Work with marketing to create assets to support the new business function

Requirements:

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills and/or abilities required to satisfactorily perform the essential functions of this job:

• ·         IT Services Sales experience
• ·         Track record of achievement against revenue and performance targets
• ·         Strong understanding of IT Industry and software development
• ·         Experience in presenting to all levels
• ·         Experience of creating, delivering and winning pitches
• ·         Sales related certification
• ·         Degree level education or equivalent

NO AGENTS PLEASE! 

Applicants must register their interest and email through their CV's to careers@synetec.co.uk 

Staying motivated on the move. The top tech podcasts

If like me you have little spare time, but spend a fair bit of it commuting or driving and you can absorb information quite easily from audio, then this list of podcasts could quite literally change your year. Subscribing to the right podcasts allow you to easily stay abreast of what’s going on with your areas of interest while you are on the move. So without further delay these are my personal tech podcasts that I subscribe to, hope you enjoy some of them.

·         Agile for Humans

http://ryanripley.com/agile-for-humans/

·         Western Devs

http://www.westerndevs.com/podcasts/

·         The Vergecast

http://www.theverge.com/podcasts

·         Harvard Business Review (not specifically tech, but features it quite often)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hbr-channel/id280272386?mt=2

There are some others that I listen to which are more general business interest, but a tip of advice is to not subscribe to 50 podcasts and then never listen to any of them. Which is what I sometimes do.

George Toursoulopoulos is a technology specialist and CEO of Synetec, one of the UK’s leading providers of bespoke software solutions.