Excel/VBA do not know where to begin - vba

Question

So I made a simple user form that will allow people to sign out equipment easily. I would like to make it so if something in the "Equipment" column is out, it will say out in the "In/Out" column. But otherwise say in. So if Equipment says "Laptop 1" and Last "Date & Time" Column is empty, then it would say out beside Laptop 1 in the "IN/OUT" column. The equipment column is multiselect with a "," between equipment options.
I have no idea where to start with this. What I have done so far minus populating the listbox and dropdown for the user form entry.
Private Sub cmdout_Click()
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("SignOut")
Dim sh As Worksheet
Dim LastRow As Long
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To equip.ListCount - 1
If equip.Selected(i) Then
Msg = Msg & equip.List(i) & ", "
End If
Next i
Msg = Left(Msg, Len(Msg) - 2)
Dim rngFound As Range
Dim strFirst As String
Dim strID As String
Dim strDay As String
Dim taken As Integer
strID = gov.Value
strDay = ""
Set rngFound = Columns("C").Find(strID, Cells(Rows.Count, "C"), xlValues, xlWhole)
If Not rngFound Is Nothing Then
strFirst = rngFound.Address
Do
If LCase(Cells(rngFound.Row, "G").Text) = LCase(strDay) Then
MsgBox "GOV is still signed out."
taken = 1
End If
Set rngFound = Columns("C").Find(strID, rngFound, xlValues, xlWhole)
Loop While rngFound.Address <> strFirst
End If
If taken = 0 Then
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = Now()
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("B" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = techname.Value
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("C" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = gov.Value
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("D" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = Msg
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("E" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = otherequip.Value
End If
Set rngFound = Nothing
End Sub
Sign in form:
Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Dim rngFound As Range
Dim strFirst As String
Dim strID As String
Dim strDay As String
strID = techname1.Value
strDay = ""
Set rngFound = Columns("B").Find(strID, Cells(Rows.Count, "B"), xlValues, xlWhole)
If Not rngFound Is Nothing Then
strFirst = rngFound.Address
Do
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Cells(rngFound.Row, "G").Value = Now()
Set rngFound = Columns("B").Find(strID, rngFound, xlValues, xlWhole)
Loop While rngFound.Address <> strFirst
End If
Set rngFound = Nothing
End Sub

Answer 1

1) A "form" is a specific coding construct in VBA. Based on what you posted, I assume that you aren't referring to it, but instead are just calling this sheet a form? If not, then please post the VBA code that you have tried.
2) Assuming that the list of equipment is in the "Tracker" column, you should use that list to populate a dropdown list in the equipment column to ensure that they match. I am also assuming that your extra equipment column won't have anything in the dropdown list and if people check out 2 tracked items, there will be a line entry for each item. (I'd recommend getting rid of that column if you get users that misuse it)
3) Since you asked where to start, I'll give you that. You'll learn much more by figuring out the exact syntax yourself. You can google "Excel VBA X" where X is basically any of these lines.
Pseudocode - (will not run, needs to be replaced with actual code - also ignore the colored words, they don't mean anything in pseudocode)
Phase 1:
trigger event on save (event handler is another search term for trigger events)
Change all equipment values to In
loop through first date/time column
IF there is a value in that column and there is not a value in the second date/time column get the name of the equipment from the equipment column
Find equipment from tracker column change In/Out value on that row to Out
continue the loop until the next row is blank
Alternate:
remove code to check everything in
add on-edit trigger to equipment column
add row that was edited to array
add on-edit trigger to check in date column
store row number to array
change loop so it only goes through rows in array
change if so that if something is checked out but not in, it is set out
(You will want to do this in case someone selects the wrong thing and then changes it - don't change it to out immediately or you will need logic to realize what was changed to out the previous time and change it back to in.)
else if something is checked out and has a value in check in date column then set it to in
Phase 2:
Implement an actual form that people use to fill in the sheet and check things in and out
Reuse relevant code from above but eliminate human error on dates and other things
(I suggest this as phase 2 as you can do this without a form and you will be using less new code. I would definitely use a form myself but it would be better if you wade into the pool instead of diving in. Unless you have coding experience and just need to learn syntax and vocab, then dive away.)
There are a lot of other things I would do if this was a form I was making, but this should get you started in terms of what to search for to build this project. I tried to make it as simple as possible so that it isn't overwhelming. There are better ways to do it but these methods should be ones that you can grasp quickly and then improve upon later after you learn more. Good luck with your equipment tracking!
Edit: after code posted
Ok, with the code you posted, go all the way to the top before the sub line and put in:
Option Explicit
This will cause the VBE editor to give you more meaningful feedback in quite a few instances. For example, you have your set line before your dim line. Without Option Explicit, when the editor comes to a variable that has not been declared with a Dim statement, it just makes it on the fly and sets it as a variant type. That uses up extra memory and means that typos get variables created on the fly. So when you are doing what you have done here, you end up with
Dim sh As Worksheet ' your sh variable is your worksheet variable. It never gets used again.
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("SignOut")' the ws here should likely be sh to match the Dim statement ... or the sh in the Dim should be a ws. Except it doesn't ever get used again either.
Neither of those matter in this case since you aren't reusing them but if you had code that was referring to one or the other, you would want the compiler to tell you that you are trying to use a variable that hasn't been declared instead of creating a new one.
Generally you want to put your Dim statements all at the top of the sub or function. 1) It is easier to find them and debug or check spelling. 2) It ensures that they are all declared before the script tries to reference them.
Your code here isn't populating the variables before it is referencing them. Pretty much any time that you have a variable you need to populate it before you can do anything with it. There are a number of ways to populate variables with data from the sheet. If you get comfortable with arrays sooner rather than latter (or collections instead of arrays) then you will have a much easier time with a task like this.
Some specific lines:
Dim LastRow as Long 'you have this declared but you need to put in code to get the last row, which will be handy for populating variables later in your code. Do this right after declaring variables. Google excel vba find last row.
For i = 0 To equip.ListCount - 1 ' you need to populate equip before doing this. Lookup excel vba how to copy a range into variable. Then lookup how to loop through range. You can start it at your first line of data and go down to the LastRow to grab them all into the same array (which will basically be a table).
msg = Left(msg, Len(msg) - 2) 'lookup excel vba string manipulations if this isn't doing what you want
'these next lines all have <Variable Name>.value which won't work for you. If those variables are supposed to be things that the sheet prompts someone to enter and then they get populated here you can see how to do that here-> http://www.excel-vba-easy.com/vba-userform-excel-vba.html
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("B" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = techname.Value
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("C" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = gov.Value
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("D" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = msg
Application.Worksheets("SignOut").Range("E" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Offset(1).Value = otherequip.Value
With your loop untils you will want to ensure that you test with a short loop and step through it over and over. If you do the logic wrong and end up looping infinitely you can easily stop stepping through and fix it (or fix it while stepping through, then stop and retest,) but if you just hit play then excel will freeze up on you.
If you run into an issue with a specific step you can probably find lots of existing things on SO. If not, post a new thread with the specifics of that step. This posting will be down a few pages by then and people likely won't see your question if you put it here. Also, it will deserve its own thread since you will have moved past the "where to start" stage at that point.
Good luck!