>Define users, Rox? Users or technical people?

Users - as in state workers that will use the vfp app, AND want ability to get to app's data for custom reporting via M$ Office tools.

>Basically, the VBA calls to the object are very similar to CREATEOBJECT in VFP. So, you'd want to have a macro in your Excel sheet or Access database that created the object and then reference it in-cells or VBA code pretty much the same as in VFP.

Ahhh... so then when I go to explain this, from a user standpoint all they will need to know is how to trigger a macro?

>The problem with this, I guess, is that you lock out casual users.

Maybe not a problem... my next question was going to be, "So ok, I set up my business rule in a table, give my users an Automation Server to do their thing in M$ Office tools, but how can I be sure my dbc is secure/safe from the power user that tries to tap it directly (without Automation Server) or via ODBC? Or is this what you mean by locking out the casual user?