Autorefreshing Dashboard


Here at Gloucestershire County Council I've written a small VBA script to cycle through a series of useful pages (attached).  Due to restrictions on our system, I have to run this from an Excel workbook:-


  1. Open your worksheet and press Alt-F11 to open Microsoft Visual Basic, press Ctrl-R to view the Project Explorer, then go Insert > Module.
  2. A new 'general' code module will appear under Modules, probably called Module1. You might need to click the + symbol against Modules to expand the group. Double-click the name of this new module to open it. Remove any code you find in the code window (probably only the words Option Explicit, if anything) and paste my code in its place - everything from Option Explicit down to and including End Sub.
  3. Insert your FreshDesk subdomain, username and password in the Const statements in place of the the xxx's.
  4. Return to your worksheet. Click Developer > Macros, select the macro called FreshDesk_Dashboard from the dialog box and click Run.

When you're happy it works, you can tweak it in the following ways:-
  1. Add/insert/remove pages... well, it's obvious: between the rows of hyphens.
  2. Change the Application.Wait statements to adjust the display times per page.
  3. To autoexecute the script when the workbook loads, add Private Sub Workbook_Open()
    : Call FreshDesk_Dashboard : End Sub
    to the module ThisWorkbook.
  4. If you don't want to autoexecute the script, you can add a button or shape on to your worksheet and assign the FreshDesk_Dashboard macro to run when it's clicked.
  5. Change Application.Visible = True to Application.Visible = False to hide Excel.  Be aware that if you do this and the script crashes, you'll need to close the Excel workbook from Task Manager, since it won't be visible.

If you have a VB/VBA guru to hand, I suggest you get them involved.

Finally, the FlashLEDs routine is there to defeat any inactivity timeout.  It's the only thing I could come up with, so if it doesn't work for you, I'm afraid you'll have to find something which does!


No warranty is expressed or implied, although I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.


Rudy Lacchin 

ICT Service Application Support Team Leader

Gloucestershire
County Council

Shire Hall

Westgate Street

Gloucester GL1 2TP




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Looks like the file may have been stripped.  Trying again...


Slightly better version...