VBA Training Courses
We're experts in VBA, but also know how to train small classes (maximum 5 people) in a friendly way, whether in a classroom setting or online.
VBA classroom training
We run the following classroom-based VBA programming training courses:
Alternatively, why not organise your own onsite VBA course, or have a look at the extensive changes we've made to our classroom training to allow social distancing.
Online VBA training
We can also run our basic VBA course as online training:
Not sure if online training is for you? We've created a detailed page for you to see exactly how our online courses work (probably better than you think!).
Which is the right VBA course for you?
For the vast majority of people we'd recommend that you book onto our two-day Introduction to Excel VBA course - even if you already know some VBA.
Although this course is aimed at absolute beginners, we've often found that the people who get the most out of it have a bit of VBA experience.
The course will show you how to write structured VBA programs, including comments and indentation. Programs like this, in fact:
Sub SelectFirstEmptyCell()
'go to the right worksheet
Worksheets("Owls").Select
'go to the top cell
Range("A1").Select
'go to the bottom cell, then one further
ActiveCell.End(xlDown).Select
ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
'write in an owl name
ActiveCell.Value = "Flappy Owl"
End Sub
If you're worried that this course would be too basic for you, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you know what Option Explicit means?
- Do you know when you would use the word SET to assign a variable value?
- Do you know what objects, collections, methods and properties are?
- Do you know how to use FOR EACH ... NEXT to loop over collections?
If the answer to all of these is yes, have a look at our advanced VBA course. This will show you how to work with other applications (among many other things). For example, the following code would delete any Excel files in the current folder:
Sub DeleteExcelWorkbooks()
'new container for working with files
Dim fso As New FileSystemObject
Dim fil As File
Dim fol As Folder
'get reference to a folder
Set fol = fso.GetFolder("c:\wise owl\")
'loop over files in current folder
For Each fil In fol.Files
If LCase(Right(fil.Name, 5)) = ".xlsx" Then
'delete all Excel workbooks
fil.Delete
End If
Next fil
End Sub
If yo're interested, this creates a reference to the Microsoft Scripting Runtime object library. If you want to understand how to do this (and what that sentence means), book on the course!
Finally (for people who are short on time but quick learners) we have a fast-track VBA course which combines the contents of our introductory and advanced VBA courses in an intensive three days. You can get even more help on choosing the right VBA course for you here.
10 things our VBA courses include
Each of our scheduled courses (whether classroom or online) includes:
- Small course sizes - we have a maximum of 5 people on each classroom or online course.
- A trainer! And not just anyone - our courses are only ever given by full-time Wise Owls.
- Full colour courseware and exercises of oustanding quality.
- A no cancellation guarantee (once you've booked and confirmed your training course, it will run).
- A one gigabyte USB stick, containing course files, answers to exercises and (by the end of the course) your answers too, together with a Sheaffer biro.
- Unofficial help after the course (although we don't have a dedicated post-course support line, in practice trainers will be happy to answer the odd ad hoc question after a course has taken place).
- A certificate sent out digitally or in paper form (your choice) after each course, together with (for tailored courses) the trainer's thoughts on how the course went.
In addition, our classroom courses also include:
- A computer for each delegate (obviously).
- Lunch out each day at a local restaurant (chosen on the day of the course, after discussion!).
- Unlimited refreshments during the day, including Tassimo or Nespresso coffee and a range of biscuits and snacks to keep you going through those dark afternoon hours.
Still not convinced? You can read hundreds of testimonials to the quality of our training (all attributed and added in the last 3 years.
About our VBA training
Wise Owl are VBA gurus! We've been teaching businesses how to automate routine tasks using Excel macros for many years, and many of our internal systems are written in VBA too. Here are a few examples:
| Application | Notes |
|---|---|
| This website | We use a suite of VBA modules and forms within SharePoint Designer to automate writing HTML for many pages of our website. |
| Our manuals | We create our manuals using Microsoft Word, with a host of routines written in VBA to automate content creation. |
| Scheduling courses | Our course scheduler in Excel uses VBA macros for common tasks like creating a calendar and scheduling new dates. |
| Website management | Our website CMS system is written in Access (with SQL Server as a back-end), using VBA throughout. |
Oh, and did we mention that programming in VBA is really satisfying? Well, when it works it is ...
Other Visual Basic for Applications training resources
There are many ways in which we can help you learn VBA, as the list below shows.
Try our VBA exercises
To continue the spirit of transparency, we've published all of our Excel VBA exercises online.
Videos on VBA
Watch our series of videos showing you how to program in VBA, including creating user forms.
Test your VBA skills
Assess your knowledge of Visual Basic for Applications programming.
Blogs on VBA
We've blogged extensively on Visual Basic for Applications macros - mainly for Excel, but also for Access and other MS Office applications.
VBA training venues
Our VBA courses run in the following locations.
VBA consultancy
No one knows VBA like Wise Owl, and no other company has the same ability to write complex systems AND then explain how they work.
Self-paced VBA online training
As well as (or instead of) attending our VBA course in the UK, you could instead follow our online training course.
VBA courseware manuals
To help you evaluate whether to entrust yourself to a Wise Owl VBA training course, we've provided some sample courseware chapters.
VBA books or publications
If you're trying to teach yourself VBA, you might find the following book useful.