Update a Row in Excel with Data From Another Workbook

Hi there,

I am pretty new to Excel and very new to the Excel Forum. I have been doing some research to try to solve my current issue and based on that I think this is the right place for this question. Please let me know if I need to move it.

Here is my issue. I am working with data sets from my LMS system to do some data analysis. The way the LMS creates these data sets, there is a full data set created every week, and then differential data sets created every day to capture the differences between the full data sets. The data sets are CSV files that I then save as Excel Workbook files.

So I have two Excel workbooks. One is the full data set, and one is the differential. What I want to do is use the differential workbook to update the full workbook. So for example: in the full data set workbook, there is a specific course that does NOT have data in the Recycle Date column, because at the time the full data set was created, the course had not been recycled. The data from the differential workbook has the same course but it DOES have a data in the Recycle Date field, because the course has now been recycled. I would want to update the row in the full data set workbook so that it matches the row in the differential data set workbook.

Is this something I would use VBA or a Macro to achieve? And if so, can you get me pointed in the right direction in terms of what I need to do?

I hope this made sense. Please let me know if you need any other information.

Thanks!

-Roslyn

That's a good point. I was thinking about the fact that they would each download as a separate workbook, but there's no reason I couldn't take the data from the differential workbook and put it as a sheet in the full workbook. That makes sense.

Follow up question: If the differential sheet also contains a new row that does not exist in the full worksheet (let's say a brand new course was created between the creation of the full data set and the differential data set), would a macro/VBA then be necessary to update the full workbook with that new row? I guess the long story short is, I'm looking for a way to use the differential sheet to update the full sheet so that the full sheet updates any existing values to match the differential sheet, and also adds any new values from the differential sheet that didn't exist before.

My goal here is to create an automatically updating Excel spreadsheet (the full worksheet) so that I can link that spreadsheet to an Access database, so that the database updates as well.

I am also brand new to databases, so if this is not the best way to go about the task, I would love any advice you might have.

Thank you!!