How can I find somebody to write an applet for me?

Factual Questions
1

I need to find somebody who can create a script that will convert CSV data into a predefined Excel format, doing some calculations along the way. I don’t think it would take more than a day or two to write something like this. Are there any sites where programmers hang out and offer their services for small jobs like this?

2

Rent-A-Coder is one, but beware that a lot of people there are rather low-quality programmers from certain South Asian locations who will do the work for pennies, but don’t expect it to be great quality. Still, for such a simple thing, it would be hard to screw it up completely.

ETA: Link.

3

Seems like just opening the CSV file with Excel gets you most of the way there. Would an Excel macro be enough to do the rest? Or are you looking for something more standalone like a command-line utility?

4

Yeah, that… I think. What we have here is a system that can spit out CSV files that show when people swiped their key cards to enter and leave. The CSV output looks like this:


ID	Title	Modified
1	OUT	11/12/2007 15:51
2	OUT	11/12/2007 12:15
3	IN	11/12/2007 06:01
4	OUT	11/09/2007 16:15
5	IN	11/09/2007 05:45
6	OUT	11/08/2007 15:59
7	IN	11/08/2007 06:03
8	OUT	11/07/2007 15:59
9	IN	11/07/2007 06:20
10	OUT	11/06/2007 16:05
11	IN	11/06/2007 05:56
12	OUT	11/05/2007 12:22
13	OUT	11/05/2007 11:19
14	IN	11/05/2007 10:06
15	OUT	11/02/2007 16:21
16	IN	11/02/2007 05:45

I had the bright idea of creating some little program that can take this data and spit out a timesheet that payrolll will accept (meaning the output has to look like the Excel timesheets we already use). So it has to calculate the total time that somebody was “in” each day, in addition to being able to raise certain flags such as overtime (more than 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week).

That RAC site looks interesting, will have to check it out. Thanks.

5

That’s a pretty simple job for a programmer. Heck, you should just find someone in your office that has experience mucking around with Excel Macros and they can do it in less than a day. There isn’t any reason to hire a third party for something like this unless you don’t have an Excel guru handy.

6

Patty O’,
I thought I’d tinker around a little with the idea. Here’s a quick and dirty stab at it: MyTime.xls

To use it, first open your CSV file with Excel. Then copy that data to the MyTime.xls file (rawdata tab). Click on the “Click here to run macro” button. A new tab (Output) will be created. Obviously the code would have to be tweeked to make Output appear as needed.

7

Well heck, that’s a pretty decent start. Thanks!

I think what I’m really after is an executable that can be run and set up with some options before the data is plugged in.

For example, I have this icon on my desktop called “monthly report generator” which points to a program on my C drive called report.exe. When I launch it, it brings up a small GUI that has a place where I can drag and drop a CSV file, along with some radio buttons on the GUI that allow me to select “month ending”, “week ending” and “day ending” followed by a date field. So if I selected “week ending” and plug 12/15/2007 into the date field, it goes into the CSV file that I selected and looks for seven days of data from 12/9-12/15, ignoring all earlier and later dates. The guy who wrote this for me also provided a setup file so that I can install “report.exe” on other PCs.

So what I think I am asking for may be beyond the scope of what macros can do, don’t you think? I should write up a more detailed description of how I need the program to behave before I get in touch with anybody over at Rent-A-Coder.

For my timesheet program, I would need similar setup conditions such as “one week/two weeks ending (date field)” and it would need to be “smart enough” to recognize and ignore multiple consecutive ins/outs (sometimes people swipe their key cards several times before the door releases).

It would also be cool if I could load basic employee info that would be remembered from week to week, so the timesheet would be produced with the person’s name, ID number, hours remaining on PO, and so forth. I guess all of that data would have to be kept on a file share somewhere.

8

Sounds like my approach isn’t the best for what you’re wanting. But I had fun putting it together. Some people do crossword puzzles to relax. I do stuff like this. Anyway, good luck in your search.