README - Transactionator (TRXN8R)

Tiller's 2022 Microsoft Excel Builders Challenge Entry

by Greg Stevens a.k.a. @GregSweats

SpreadsheetNerdsUnite

Announcing Tiller’s 2022 Microsoft Excel Builders Challenge

🔗 Download Latest TRXN8R Excel from Releases

DOWNLOAD TRXN8R.SOME_VERSION.xlsx from Releases

Look under the expandable Assets section.

 

⚠ Two warnings may popup

1. Enable Editing
   1. This is because the file was downloaded.
2. Enable Content
   1. This is to allow access to External Content, the Transactions Workbook you will configure.

Screenshot

🤯 Yesssss, this is Microsoft Excel.

Ever seen a spreadsheet with a SEIZURE WARNING? That one Dino GIF is a lot to take in.

Table of Contents

• Tiller's 2022 Microsoft Excel Builders Challenge Entry
• 🔗 Download Latest TRXN8R Excel from Releases
• Screenshot
• Table of Contents
• Why?
• 1️⃣ Getting Started as a User
  • 1.1. Download the Excel Workbook
  • 1.2. Configure TRX8NR 🐱‍🐉 to Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) the Results of Your Transactions (Trxns)
• 2️⃣ Issues, Help, Discussions, etc.
• 3️⃣ Obsidian Vault
  • Example 2022-06-01 - Open Folder as Vault, Freshly Cloned Repo
• Contributing
• Getting Started as a Developer
  • Download ZIP, Excel, or Git Clone the Repo
  • Git Clone the Repo
    • Example
  • Caveats
    • Usually Avoid Cloning into a OneDrive Folder
• Goals / Thoughts
• Diagram Samples (/diagrams/)

Why?

Best to see https://career.stevens.pro/tiller

1️⃣ Getting Started as a User

⚠ The first hit is always free.

1.1. Download the Excel Workbook

⭐ Download TRXN8R.xlsx

• LATEST VERSION will always be the only .xlsx in the root of this project.
• /TRXN8R.xlsx is a copy/paste alias, a gross, crude, redirect.
• I think having the version in the name is good, especially when filing issues or knowing when to update.
• Could be a hidden, checkable value within a cell or Power Query Param though...hmmmm...

1.2. Configure TRX8NR 🐱‍🐉 to Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) the Results of Your Transactions (Trxns)

From the main screen, the workbook in the screenshot, TRX8NR Home

1. Foundation/Transactions Workbook File Path

   1. The location of your Tiller Foundation Template with a Transactions Worksheet.

   2. The Transactions from this worksheet will be used to determine:

      1. Column Headers for mapping the CSV Files to.
      2. Transaction History to avoid importing duplicate Transactions.
      3. After the import, TRXN8R loads the t8r_TrxnsFromImport Worksheet with new, de-duplicated Transactions, in the same column format for easy copy/paste back into your actual Transactions Worksheet data.
      4. Review the Imported Transactions, add them back to your Foundation/Transactions Workbook, and voile, we should succeed! 🏆

   3. ⚠ TRX8NR SHOULD NOT MODIFY/OVERWRITE/DESTROY YOUR DATA!

      1. Still in beta as of 2022-06-01 so mistakes may happen.
      2. TRXN8R is designed to Load the Transactions from your Workbook only.

      3. todo Is there a way to open the source Workbook read only?

         1. Might already be.
         2. Look in Power Query at t8r_GetWorksheetFromTrxnsWorkbook. We get the File.Contents and load Workbook from that...how could it write it back?!

         worksheet = Excel.Workbook(
           // https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/file-contents
           // File.Contents(path as text, optional options as nullable record) as binary
           File.Contents(
               T8R_TRXNS_WORKBOOK_PATH
           ),
           true,
           true
         ){[Name=worksheetName]},

         1.

   4. consumed from data/to-import/ will be compared to the Transactions Worksheet in this Foundation Template.

2. Pick Transactions Worksheet

   1. ✅ Any Custom Headers/Ordering Works

      1. 🤯 TRX8NR loads the headers from the Transactions Worksheet into the next step, the TRX8NR ImportConfigs Worksheet, where you can set what CSV Header to use for this Transactions Header .
      2. #beta may be buggy 🐛

   2. Pick the Worksheet to use from the Foundation Template.

      1. This should be a drop-down list but it may be buggy 🐛

3. Folder Path to Import From

   1. 🔧 The Windows Directory where your CSV Files are located.
   2. 🐱‍🐉 TRXN8R will scan all sub-directories too. #feature

4. Config to Use

   1. 🚧 #WorkInProgress
   2. Goal is to have T8R let you map different configs to different files, based on patterns, paths, and a final manual YES/NO confirmation somehow #maybe.

5. Refresh Data

6. Review Results

2️⃣ Issues, Help, Discussions, etc.

• Issues · trxn8r/trxn8r
• Projects · trxn8r

3️⃣ Obsidian Vault

./docs/

• Glance at the Obsidian Vault ./docs/
• That "Vault" is where Obsidian.md magic comes into play.
• Install/Open Obsidian (for free) and then "Open folder as vault" and open the vault folder ./obsvault-tiller22./.

Example 2022-06-01 - Open Folder as Vault, Freshly Cloned Repo

Nicer keeping all documentation within wonderful Obsidian 👩‍🏭.

Sincerely,

Greg Stevens
@gsteve3
2022-05-22 at 01:08:07 AM MDT
https://career.stevens.pro/

Contributing

🔗 See CONTRIBUTING.md

Getting Started as a Developer

Download ZIP, Excel, or Git Clone the Repo

Git Clone the Repo

Below uses one of my fav tools [gh - GitHub CLI], you can git clone... as usual if you prefer. ✌

gh repo clone trxn8r/trxn8r
code trxn8r

Example

PS C:\Users\GregStevens\OneDrive - Dalyle\projects>
gh repo clone trxn8r/trxn8r
Cloning into 'trxn8r'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 506, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (4/4), done.
remote: Total 506 (delta 3), reused 3 (delta 3), pack-reused 502
Receiving objects: 100% (506/506), 41.58 MiB | 11.04 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (105/105), done.

PS C:\Users\GregStevens\OneDrive - Dalyle\projects>

PS C:\Users\GregStevens\OneDrive - Dalyle\projects> code .\trxn8r\

// The dot and backslahses around trxn8r are not required.
// They showed up when I pressed <kbd>TAB</kbd> to auto-complete the name.

Powershell example, rather than the usual shell Markdown language, just to be unique, hehe, get it?! ...data [base|model|science] words! 🤣

Caveats

Caveat: a warning or caution; admonition. Law. a legal notice to a court or public officer to suspend a certain proceeding until the notifier ...

-- Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, 2022-06-01

Usually Avoid Cloning into a OneDrive Folder

• Cloning into a [[OneDrive]] folder is something that I have had HUGE issues with before due to constant Network Activity, most noticeable whne listing directories and/or svaing files.
  • Set the parent folder to Always available on this device.
  • This small repo wasn't like the multi-GB one I had the problems with before.
  • I was in my garage with very poor WiFi at the time (~15-50 Mbps on a 1 GB Fiber line!).
• I LOST NEARLY EIGHT HOURS OF WORK a few days ago, circa [[2022-05-30]], when I was working of my usual local source drive. 😡
  • Utilizing the built-in backups, versioning, etc. that [[OneDrive]] and [[SharePoint]] offer.
  • Super nice stuff.
  • Most end users are probably storing this in OneDrive.
    • Maybe in a [[OneDrive#Vault|OneDrive Vault]] ?!
    • [ ] Is a [[OneDrive#Vault|OneDrive Vault]] more secure than [[Google Sheets]] in this case?! #CompetitiveResearch #Versus
• To avoid further loss, I now keep it backed up on OneDrive, where most my data lives 😇.

Goals / Thoughts

• MS Office / Windows Based Friendly Naming
  • e.g. Create a new folder rather than directory (Linux/Web terminology I think 🤔❓)
  • Models after Windows Explorer's "New folder" button.

  • todo: Any reference for this?

  • e.g. Worksheet over Sheet and Workbook over File or Spreadsheet (#maybe ?).
• Leverage Microsoft Office 365 (0365) Services
  • Cloud, local, apps, whatever.
  • Workflows, commenting, approving, todos.
  • Outlook/Email Integration (forward receipts, etc...) #dreaming #future
  • OneDrive Vaults
  • etc.
• Be User Friendly
  • TRX8NR was created for Tiller’s 2022 Microsoft Excel Builders Challenge
  • After a review of roughly 10 financial products, Tiller was the best. At the very least the data was mine!
  • I have done some wonky things with spreadsheets in the past, such as using multiple CONCAT(... to write hundreds of Apache Redirects, routinely, without any effort, and only having the team fill out the old/new columns. Plus an entire Forage U-pick Tool with _real scientific data created as a 10-year follow-up to a project with 10-15 years of previous data in it!
  • The creator of trx8nr, @GregSweats, was working on a small contribution of a mapping to a Python package, csv2ofx for EQBank.ca.
  • That is a beautiful solution, and chainable into some sort of future automation pipeline, with it's Command Line Interface (CLI) thanks to being NodeJS based.
  • It requires coding when certain columns change though, running Python, which, is amazing and something I want to get into, largely due a-newly-admitted-to-myself Data Science 🔍 interest.
• Be a Model of Best Practices to help make better developers which will make better, clearly documented, user friendly packages & apps which will make a better world! 🦄
  • I, @GregSweats, don't know what I'm doing.
  • I type stuff, stuff happoens.
  • Somehow I seem to know things though.
  • So as well as helping others this is also a completely selfish undertaking to hopefully give people an interesting tool and they will teach me howz to be betterz!
• Help @GregSweats get a job with Tiller
• Help @GregSweats figure out if he is insane, or actually on to something with his various workflows.
  • Through the use of 10-20+ Hours of Screencasts that will soon be available on YouTube @GregWorks 4 Hour 20 Minute Non-Stop Initial, RAW, Uncut, Initial Screencast Experiment and Garage Building Finishing w/ Woodworking and Examples of Non-Verbal Communication Skills 📽.

Diagram Samples (/diagrams/)

• #update 2022-06-02: These are somewhat outdated but still surprisingly close!
• 👉 Checkout the [Obsidian Vault]() for more, and up-to-date information.