How to Link programs

[enzo80]

am new to programming just finishes reading book step by step by microsoft, it doesnt teach me how to link 2 programs together, at work we have program made by an outsider company in it spreadsheet with over 500,000+ names, each day we have to pick random names from the list and print them out to make files for them(i work at social security), picking the names is daunting task and the program they made is pretty slow when you scroll around, am assuming they saved all the number in string variables, so i want to make program to sort and let the user type the number they need to pick from the large spreadsheet, then my program would choose all those number from other program. sorry for my bad English and grammar lol

 

[jmcilhinney]

What you're suggesting may not be too easy because automating an application that was never designed for it can be difficult, depending on what you want to do. Can you describe the process in more detail? What exactly would the user do in your application and then what effect would that have on the other application? Also, is it possible to bypass the other application altogether and access the data directly, in a more efficient way perhaps?