using Microsoft Access or Other program to track player values and notes

[grendel]

I am not sure where to ask this question so starting here.
I use Excel and update my Custom Draft Guide values weekly for my teams.

I would like to be able to have a place where I have all players listed, with CDG values, AND my own personal player notes that I add to periodically.
And then just I assume using the Player ID the latest CDG values would update and my player notes would also be there.

Does my question make sense?
Is Access the best program to use?

Thank you very much for any and all help.

-rob

[Tom_T]

Well, there is no way you're going to be able to connect "live" to HQ to get all your data. But, if you're willing to download the CDG data each week, then you can do this in Excel. You could have one sheet with your rosters, and another sheet with the CDG data that you've downloaded. You would replace that second sheet whenever you want. Assuming your rosters have the appropriate player IDs, then it can look up the latest CDG value from the second sheet. It's like looking up a product price, which Excel does very well.

See: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/1378...okup-in-excel/

[usualsuspects]

Can you get CDG data into Excel with a web query?

Been awhile since I set up that sort of spreadsheet. And there are passwords and entry fields to deal with so it might be daunting.

TomT’s solution looks workable. In a single workbook, have three sheets. One with player IDs and names and your comments. The comments could either be all in a single cell or in sequential cells (C, D, E, etc) for sequential comments. A second sheet where you download CDG results or copy/paste them into “A1” weekly. Then the third, “master” sheet would append the player comments from sheet one to the numeric from sheet two.

It can probably be done way more elegantly with a pivot table or something like that if you are more proficient.

And again, a long time since I have tried it, but I thought Excel had limited ability to convert to DB format so you may not need to invoke Access at all.

The Excel force is strong in PD@HQ for roto related things, you could try PM.

[JonE]

I agree that Access doesn't get you much that Excel doesn't already give you.

In my master Excel workbook, I would set up a "today" sheet that has the following columns:

My Team | HQID | Name | Current Projected R$ | Notes

"My Team" could just be a yes/no, or I could add additional flags that indicate "free agent" or "watch this player" or "trade target" or whatever.

Then I would do manual data entry in Columns A, B, C, and E to generate the names and notes.

Then I would download the current CDG to a worksheet, rename that worksheet to the current date (let's say Apr-01), and insert it in the workbook.

Then in Column D of "today," I would create a VLOOKUP formula that points to Apr-01 and finds the R$ value from that sheet for each player. Each week, I would insert the latest version of the CDG export, and edit that VLOOKUP formula to point to the correct sheet and cells of the latest CDG sheet (Apr-08, Apr-15, etc.).

I would put all of my notes in the Notes column of "today," and then they'd stay there. I would use a filter to exclude players who don't have the relevant flag in My Team. (I would have to update that manual entry every week, to account for the players I have cut or traded or added.)

Now, I should confess that I am not fond of Access, but I will also admit that my opinion was formed twenty-five years ago and it is theoretically possible that the program might have gotten better sometime in the last quarter century.

That said, I would offer two other things to think about. First, the decision might depend on how much calculation you want to do. Excel is essentially a calculating program that can be made to function like a database, and Access is a database program that can be made to do some limited calculations. If you wanted, say, to filter free agents based on CT% or K/9, or if you have some homemade function that you like to use for examining players, then it's easier to do that in Excel.

But the other reason I wouldn't bother to move things into Access is that the CDG is designed to export files into .csv format, which is so easily brought into Excel. .csv is not one of the default formats for importing into Access, and while I am sure an advanced Access user can do it, it seems like more work than it is in Excel.

[grendel]

Thank you all very much. I do already use Excel to download CDG regularly and plug it into my roster details. I now see how I can use the suggestions to tie sheets together and add the information I am looking to add. This should work very well. Thank you again!