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Read Only Workbook - How to Log who reads the workbook

I have a Ready Only workbook that is available to 100 people. I want to determine who uses the workbook. However, I can not add code to the OnOpen event as since the Workbook is read only then my code can not write the users name to a cell. My other concern is a macro may open this read only workbook and I do not want to impact any macros that may open this read only workbook and extract info..

Any suggestions on how I can figure out who uses the workbook without having to email all 100 individuals..

David Favor

Place your workbook behind a CMS which forces a login for access.

You'll know instantly.

Likely much easier to use a working CMS, like WordPress, than hand roll your own.

upobDaPlaya

ASKER

Whats a CMS...Whatever it is I think that solution would be problematic as if today am unaware that a macro opens this read only workbook and then out of nowhere I put up a CMS I assume the macro would fail ?

David Favor

CMS == WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, 100s of others.

If you're new to CMS software, stick with WordPress.

With a CMS, you'd just setup your workbook as restricted content, so a person has to login to use your workbook. Then just track user stats.

You can also go a step further + break apart your workbook into separate content pages, to gather more granular data.

Read up on WordPress. You'll likely be surprised by all the features a CMS can provide for you.

Roy Cox

Maybe write to a text file. Create a text file named log, change the path in the code to suit

Option Explicit

Private Sub Workbook_Open()
    Dim sPath As String
    sPath = ThisWorkbook.Path & Application.PathSeparator & "log.txt"    ''///Change to your folder
    Open sPath For Append As #1
    Write #1, Application.UserName & " , " & Format(Now, "yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm")
    Close #1
End Sub

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Roy Cox

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upobDaPlaya

ASKER

Hi Roy, what is the purpose of the ihandle...

Roy Cox

The VBA FreeFile function reserves the next available file number for VBA file input/output. When you open a file for writing or reading in VBA, you must refer to that file with a unique integer file number. The FreeFile function determines this unique file number for you so you can use it to open, read, and write files using VBA. It avoids a conflict if your chosen number has been used.

upobDaPlaya

ASKER

Thanks for the detail

Roy Cox

Pleased to help