I am still in awe after seeing so many GIS people under one roof last week during the ESRI International User conference  in San Diego. As a student assistant for the conference it gave me a opportunity to meet other students from the same field and interests. 

Visited many places and took a lot of photos. What best way than to use it in a new way of blogging I picked up at the user conference last week.So here's the story template with the map and a few photos .Please drop in your feedback.

Photos , Maps and a story 

My first experiment with python was to create a single feature class from n number of excel sheets .The required fields in the excel sheet would be of course the lat and the long field which I have used in the python code to. These fields can be modified according to the users requirement.What this code basically does  initially is , as soon as the excel file with sheets is selected as an input it creates an empty feature class in the selected workspace. It selects the first sheet and loops through the fields to create the points. Now once the first sheet is completed it does the same process for the remaining sheets and appends the features into the existing shapefile.


###########################################################
### Tool: To convert excel sheets into point shapefile
### Created by : Senthilnathan Thyagarajan
###########################################################
import arcpy, os
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True
param = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0)
arcpy.env.workspace = param
in_tables = arcpy.ListTables()

#Folder where temporary files will be created.
root = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(1)
out_pntsTemp = 'pointSubset.shp'
out_pntsPerm = 'pointxlsOUT.shp'
out_dbf = 'temp.dbf'
append_fm = root + '\\' + out_pntsTemp
append_to = root + '\\' + out_pntsPerm
outTable = root + '\\' + out_dbf

longitude = "long"
latitude = "lat"
DD = "DD"
joinField = "storenum"

shp = in_tables[0]
arcpy.ConvertCoordinateNotation_management(shp, append_to, longitude, latitude, DD, DD, joinField)
arcpy.AddMessage(append_to)
arcpy.CopyRows_management(shp, outTable)
arcpy.JoinField_management(append_to, joinField, outTable, joinField)
count = arcpy.GetCount_management(append_to).getOutput(0)
arcpy.AddMessage('Successful join operation... ' + str(count) + ' total features.  Processing for ' + shp + ' is complete.')
# Remove shp from the in_tables list and begin looping on the remaining tables...
in_tables.remove(shp)

for table in in_tables:
             
 #ConvertCoordinateNotation_management (in_table, out_featureclass, x_field, y_field, input_coordinate_format, output_coordinate_format, {id_field}, {spatial_reference})
          arcpy.ConvertCoordinateNotation_management(table, append_fm, longitude, latitude, DD, DD, joinField)
          arcpy.AddMessage('' + table + '.  Now copying table rows for further join process, related fields.')
          #CopyRows_management (in_rows, out_table, {config_keyword})
          arcpy.CopyRows_management(table, outTable)
          arcpy.AddMessage(' Now joining fields.')
          #JoinField_management (in_data, in_field, join_table, join_field, {fields})
          arcpy.JoinField_management(append_fm, joinField, outTable, joinField)
          arcpy.AddMessage('Appending to output.')
          #Append_management (inputs, target, {schema_type}, {field_mapping}, {subtype})
          arcpy.Append_management(append_fm, append_to, 'NO_TEST')
          #GetCount_management (in_rows)
          count = arcpy.GetCount_management(append_to).getOutput(0)
          arcpy.AddMessage('Successful append... ' + str(count) + ' total features.  Processing for ' + table + ' is complete.')
          
  
arcpy.Delete_management(append_fm)
arcpy.Delete_management(outTable)
arcpy.AddMessage('done!')
######################################################################

I have also shared the python script, the excel sheet and a read me file on how to use the toolbox in ArcGIS Desktop 10.0.