Thats what I thought, although only the 5 or so IT people know how to use a
computer the rest are call centre operatives locked down by policy in Active
Directory so I was hoping the policys would act as damage limitation, still
it wasn't something I was comfortable with anyway.

What I am trying to achieve is the following:

Excel is the businesses idea of reporting and when call centre apps are
written they copy 8 pieces of information that is stored in the backend CMS
sql database and copy into a daily spreadsheet.  Because these are manually
entering they get it wrong, also its pointless as the information from the
app is stored in the backend CMS database, we are basically just repeating
information.

I have decided to create a windows service to monitor the timestamp on a
file, when the timestamp on a file changes the windows service queries the
SQL database using a stored procedure and writes the resultset to an xml
file.  I then take this xml file and format accordingly in asp.net or html
(haven't decided yet).

If I create a COM component instead can I call this easily enough from a
stored procedure or will I again hit problems like the ones that I have
encountered.  I can only add code to the stored procedure as the CMS software
was bought off the shelf and doesn't allow me to modify the program.

Any websites, kb articles or tutorials that anyone knows of that may help me
are very appreciated

thanks in advance