All done - IP address is he same and the ports bit is blank - really stuck on this one

Thanks for the input - I am running this on a local machine - no accessing remote machines. I have installed an instance on a widows server 2008 machine and...

need it to be automatic though - dont think i can trigger it automatically

Not thought about that option but may try and find some examples on the web. cheers

thanks for the reply- can SQL reporting services take an existing template like i have or does it generate the whole document on the fly?

hopefully nearly there

i have changed where you suggested

DECLARE @xlFileName nvarchar(255)

SET @xlFileName=N'D:\'+ @XPRACTICE +'.XLS'

PRINT @pracid

DECLARE @sql as nvarchar(2000)

SET @sql=N'INSERT INTO OPENROWSET(''Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0'',''Excel 8.0;DATABASE='+@xlFileName+''',''Select * from [DATA$]'')SELECT COMPANY,LOANREF,AGREEMENTNUMBER,SOLREF,FIRSTNAME,SURNAME,ADD1,ADD2,ADD3,POSTCODE,CAPITAL,INTEREST,FEES,BALANCE,STARTDATE,DUEDATE,LOANTYPE FROM...

thanks for the help - these are my first go a procs.

tried bringing the select statement in but it now says i Must declare the scalar variable "@PRACID".

i have listed...

still getting an error - altered your code slightly, here is all the code below for this bit - @pracid is declared in code above it (works fine)

EXEC sp_configure 'show...

DECLARE @datasource as VARCHAR(4000)

SET @datasource = 'Excel 8.0;Database=D:\'+ @XPRACTICE +'.XLS;'

INSERT INTO OPENROWSET ('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0', @datasource ,'Select * from [DATA$]')

i get an Incorrect syntax near '@datasource'

i declared @filename:

DECLARE @FILENAME AS VARCHAR(50)