VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is a development language used by the Microsoft Office suite of programs. It enables one Microsoft Office application to communicate with, or to control, another.

As an example of this, VBA code running in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet could start up Microsoft Word, open a document, amend the document (perhaps with info from within the spreadsheet itself) and save it and then close Microsoft Word - all within a couple of seconds.

Similarly, a VBA program running in Microsoft Word could carry out procedures on a Microsoft Excel file or a Micrsosoft PowerPoint file.

This powerful language allows Disegno to create multi-application solutions if required. So information from a Microsoft Access database could export itself into a Microsoft Excel file, which would then tidy itself up (perhaps attaching the company logo to the top of the spreadsheet) and then place itself in an eMail ready to be sent to a client. All at the click of a mouse or the touch of a button. This would be far quicker and more efficient than manually undertaking these tasks.

In fact Automated Reports, as outlined above, are an excellent example of how a cross-application VBA solution could save literally hours of time each week. But in addition to this, many smaller tasks can also be automated, such as customer invoicing and eMails to clients.

VBA also provides additional functionality to Microsoft Office programs, as well as amending the usual functionality: overriding certain features. Perhaps a file always needs to be saved to a particular folder on the PC, but has repeatedly been lost due to people's failure to do this. VBA could ensure that the file could ONLY be saved to the correct folder.

Similarly, VBA could prevent a file being saved if certain information was not present on it, or could remind the user, via a friendly pop-up message, that a certain time of day has arrived and so certain info needs to be entered. All this, and more, is possible with VBA.