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Excel 2007 Security

In order to use MEI Estimating Software with Excel 2007, macros must be enabled and access to the Visual Basic Project granted.

Enabling macros is accomplished in several ways. You can grant unrestricted access to macros by setting the Excel Security Level to Enable all macros.  With this setting, anytime a spreadsheet is opened that contains macros, they are automatically enabled.  This setting is generally not recommended because provides the user with no warning of potential malicious programming.  Access to macros can also be granted with the Security Level set to Disable all macros with warning.  In this case, the user is alerted to the presence of macros prior to opening the file and can decide to continue or cancel opening the file.

When the software is run for the first time, a check of the security settings is made and the user is alerted to a condition preventing proper operation of our software.  The user can then allow the settings to be automatically updated to the proper configuration if desired.  Alternately, the user can manually configure the security setting as shown in the following steps.

 

Step 1.  Open Excel.

 

Step 2.  Open the Excel Options Dialog Box by clicking the Office Button in the upper left

and selecting Excel Options at the bottom of the window.

 

Step 3.  Select the Trust Center option from the left-hand pick-list, then click on

Trust Center Settings...

 

 

Step 4.  Select Macro Settings from the left-hand pick-list and then select either

                Disable all macros with notification or

                Enable all macros

 

 

Step 5.  Also check the Trust access to the VBA project object model box.

 

Step 6.  Click OK and close Excel.

 

You can now open an MEI Estimation file. If you selected Disable all macros with notification,

you will see the following message displayed once the file is opened.

 

 

Click on the Options... button to see the following dialog box.

 

 

Select the Enable this content option and click OK.  This will activate the

MEI Estimation software.  To avoid this message in the future, you can make your Estimation

folder a Trusted Location.  Excel will automatically enable macros in files from a trusted location.

 

To do this, navigate to the Trust center as described in Steps 1 through 3 above.  Select

Trusted Locations from the left-hand pick-list and the following screen will appear.  Click on

Add new location...

 

 

Type in or browse to the estimates folder you selected when installing MEI Estimating software

(default is C:\Estimates). Make sure you check the Subfolders of this location are also trusted box.

Then click OK.  Your estimates folder is now a trusted location and you will not have to enable content

when opening an estimate file.

 

 

One final comment about Excel 2007 security.  Typically Excel expect to open files with

certain extensions.  Because our software uses a unique extension, i.e. .est, Excel will display

the following message upon opening a MEI Estimation file.  When this message is displayed,

simply select Yes and proceed with opening the file.

 

 

If you have any security related questions or comments please feel free to send us an email

or give us a call.

 

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