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Applies to: NeuralTools 5.5 and newer
Can I run NeuralTools from Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) or programmatically?
Yes, this has been part of NeuralTools since release 5.5. For details, in NeuralTools click Help » Developer Kit (XDK).
NeuralTools 1.0 and 5.0 did not provide a VBA programming API, so the definition and training of a neural net must be done interactively. However, once a neural net has been trained, Live Prediction (available in NeuralTools Professional) can be used in combination with Excel VBA in order to make use of a neural net programmatically.
Once the neural net has been trained, values in the data set can be changed and the corresponding outputs can be used the same as any other Excel cells which have values computed by formulas. In other words, if you are used to working with a formula like
A2 = A1 * 10
where you change the value of A1 programmatically and then work with the value of A2, then you are already working with the same principles. In the case of NeuralTools, changing A1 would correspond to changing one of the independent values in a particular data case, and A2 would correspond with the output computed by the neural network.
Since trained neural nets can be saved with Excel workbooks, the requirement of defining and training a neural network interactively will not impact the ability to make use of a trained neural net programmatically.
Last edited: 2015-09-03