FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

This section of the site will be used to respond to questions about the tools and models that have been made available on this site.  Where appropriate click on the title to open up a demonstration sheet for the specific FAQ.

NOTE:  If you are going to use the demonstration sheets, ensure that you right click the link, and then save the file to the following directory:

c:\program files\toteboard

If you don't do this, then you may not be able to access the functions correctly.

Utilizing the "LinkBuilder" Function

The LinkBuilder function is provided as part of the Toteboard Tools.xla add in.  The purpose of this function is to assist you in building context sensitive links to over 250 destination points on the web.  

Step 1

To use this function, firstly ensure that the Toteboard Tools add-in is available for your use within Excel.  To check this from Excel click on the Tools menu item, then Add-Ins.  The following dialog box will appear, and ensure that the Toteboard Tools check box is checked. 

Step 2

To get a listing of all the links that are available thru the Toteboard Tools add in, utilize the "LinksFilter" function.  This is an array based function that will return 2 columns of data, and about 250 rows.  The first column is the textual description of the link, while the second column is the actual URL that needs to be constructed.  To use this function select 2 columns and 250 rows.  Next, insert the "LinksFilter" user defined function, and then press Ctrl-Shift-Enter.  (This will define the function as an array.)  If you have done this correctly, you will see {=LinksFilter()} in the edit box of the cell.    You will also see the following information in the first 5 rows of your array:

Step 3

The best way to access this information from within Excel is to link this to a ComboBox control.  Insert a ComboBox control into your spreadsheet, and then set the "ListFillRange" property equal to the beginning and ending cells of the first column returned from the "LinksFilter" function.  In my example, this is cells u3:u246.  You will also need to set the "LinkedCell" property which will be the location where the result of what the user selects will be returned.  In my example I have selected cell u2.

Step 4

Next, you'll need to lookup the actual URL given the textual description.  This should be done using the vlookup() function.  In my example, I have done this in cell v2, and have implemented the following function:  

=VLOOKUP(U2,U3:V252,2,FALSE) 

Again, this will return the base url for the selected textual description.

Step 5

Next, you'll need to use the "LinkBuilder" function given the base url acquired in Step 4 above, and the symbol for the stock you want to build the link for.  In my example, the following is how this was defined:

=LinkBuilder(V2,G8)

The first parameter required the base url, while the second parameter requires the stock symbol.

Step 6

The final step is to utilize the Excel hyperlink() function to build a hyperlink off of the text in a cell.  The first parameter requires the url, and the second parameter requires the "friendly text" value.  In my example, I have entered the following:

=HYPERLINK(G11,"Link to this site!")

Usage Notes:  The value of this function is that you can generate context sensitive url's given various meta data about the symbol you are searching for.  Thus, if you own a preferred stock, and want to get news for the underlying company, you could use the "Headlines (Yahoo)" link to get news headlines for the underlying company that has issued your preferred stock.  You could also perform a Google search given the company name of the symbol that you own.

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Last modified: January 02, 2006