Fupload Excel Addin

I work for a university and we implemented an ERP system long ago. The name of the ERP? you may ask. Well at the time we implemented it was called Banner. Now the company was taken over by a company called Datatel. However that’s not what this article is about, lets get down to brass tacks. One of the most functional and useful pieces of software that an accountant can use is Excel. In fact I don’t know an accountant that does not use excel.  Banner system has a very convenient way to load journal entries into the system its called FUPLOAD. If you have a 500 line journal entry would you keyed it in? I hope not. We went live with Banner about 4 years ago and ever since then we have used one of the many FUPLOAD templates floating around. The particular template we got our hands on was good but there were some limitation and some serious problems with training that at times where just a pain. I took it and rewrote it but I also faced some of the same issues that were part of the original template. Users would not Paste Special others would save over the template , the list goes on and on. So that brought me to my latest idea. Wouldn’t it be nice if I can use excel freely and make a FUPLOAD at my command. That’s the purpose of the FUPLOAD addin.

Fupload addin is an excel addin that basically makes any spreadsheet into a fupload. Here is how you use it.

Very Important if you plan to use the addin you must follow the steps in this order.

step 1 – we must install the fupload.

go to this website, it will prompt you to download a .zip file. unzip the contents of the file to a folder any where in your computer and run the prepare.exe file.

this will make some registry entries to allow the later process to run. for more information if your curious you can look here.

2-set the internet options.

Microsoft is very picky about allowing people to install in their operating systems and they required that I pay a couple of hundreds to buy a certificate and strongly sign my program. However I don’t need it for this purpose so in order to allow the install to work you must set my site as a trusted site on your pc.

this is how you do it.

1-start Internet Explorer

2-Go to tools> options.

3- click on security and then on sites

4-Add the following text on the “Add this website to the zone” “http:\\*.miguelontheweb.com” (Microsoft would not allow downloads without site being in your trusted sites.), unclick on the required server verification checkbox on the bottom of your screen and click the ADD button, then ok.

5-Shut down internet explorer.

6-Restart internet explorer and go to this website http://miguelontheweb.com/fupaddin/firstexceladdin.vsto you will get a screen the looks like this.

Click install.

7- once the install is complete open EXCEL and notice that now you have an additional tabs call addins.

8-Click on addins and you will notice a button that says fupload, click that button and you will end up with a task pane in the right hand side of excel like such.

ok now lets go over the features. some features are related strickly to Temple University and the others are for just about anybody.

to get started open a spreadsheet and click on the “make sheet into fupload” button. this will add headers to your spreadsheet from columns A-P

next you should click the “override index lookup checkbox”- these feature is set up to call a webservice here at Temple and for any index that you enter in column A it would return

the appropriate  fund , org , prog.

Your spreadsheet should now look like this.

at the minimum you need to have a fund , org, prog, account and debit and credit and description to have a valid fupload.

This is what the finished product should look like. Once it is complete you can simply click on the “Make Fupload button”. You will find your fupload file located at “C:\Temp\” which is the same location where banner saves its files.

I loved to hear what you think of this addin leave me some comments in the comments below. I also like to hear if you encountered any bugs or issues.

I could update the addin and automatically you would get the immediate update. Part of the reason why decided to host the addin on my own site.