Hopefully someone has been down this road before and can offer some sound advice as far as which direction I should take. I am currently involved in a project in which we will be utilizing a custom database to store data extracted from excel files based on pre-established templates (to maintain consistency). We currently have a process (written in C#.Net 2008) that can extract the necessary data from the spreadsheets and import it into our custom database. What I am primarily interested in is figuring out the best method for integrating that process with our portal. What I would like to do is let SharePoint keep track of the metadata about the spreadsheet itself and let the custom database keep track of the data contained within the spreadsheet. So, one thing I need is a way to link spreadsheets from SharePoint to the custom database and vice versa. As these spreadsheets will be updated periodically, I need tried and true way of ensuring that the data remains synchronized between SharePoint and the custom database. I am also interested in finding out how to use the data from the custom database to create reports within the SharePoint portal. Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.