If you're considering moving data to Access, it's probably time to give up on Excel as your data manager. I recommend importing your data into Access and moving forward. This strategy frees you from the limitations of linking, and opens possibilities for more tables and a far more complex database with multiuser capability. But for cases where you need to maintain data in Excel, linking is a viable solution that lets you use Access features, but maintain compatibility with Excel. Other Excel users needn't even be aware of your use of the data in Access, as long as you don't try to access a worksheet at the same time as the other user(s). The biggest limitation with linking is that you can add and edit records, but not delete them. For that reason, linking should be used primarily for viewing and reporting data, with most of the maintenance done in Excel.