I have a few Excel hackers who are able to quickly produce some pretty cool "reports" using Excel and MSQuery against my VFP database. I would like to open up this functionality to other "simpler" users. My clients like Excel and want to use it as the main interface. They can easily add calculations, pivot-tables, highlighting, summary pages, etc. There are also fields that I don't want people gaining access to. Is there a product available for this?

1. I am NOT talking about dumping VFP query results into Excel. I'm talking about creating a pivot-table where the user can quickly change simple criteria and refilter the data from within Excel and see the new data in the pivot-table instantly.

2. A VFP report writer exporting to Excel won't work because the end result is static data that can't be refiltered in Excel.

3. I am able to "automate" Excel, but I want users to be able to format their own reports. Besides, they think of little stuff all the time and just do it in Excel instead of waiting for me to write a static report.

4. CanNOT be MSQuery because it requires intimate knowlege about how tables are joined and allows access to every field. I want to be able to set up a "Data Dictionary" much like I have in FoxFire or StoneField so all the table joins are behind the scenes and the user does not see the "raw" field names (and I can hide fields). I then want to take that query and make it "live" within Excel so that if the data in the tables change and the users "refreshes" their spreadsheet, they get the new data.

Maybe if we could "embed" a VFP data dictionary interface into Excel and force Excel to use our VFP interface and generated query just like it would use MS-Query...

Hasn't anybody else ever wanted this?

Thanks in advance,
Paul James