>>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?

I belive with DCOM you can tell the OS what user to run your object as. Lets say the object runs as IUSER_MyObject....

You give IUSER_MyObject access to the directory where the files are.

Now you give Joe User access to your Object by NOT to your files.

Of course, if they are just going to be querying data, won't just giving them Read Access only to the files do it?

BOb