how can I develop an excel dashboard that is linked to baan. Previously I had to pull the report from baan first and paste it to an excel worksheet that had the dashboard. Customer calls are closed and updated everytime so we need a dashboard that pulls data automatically from baan and updates all the time. Please assist.

Search the AFS/DDC/OLE forum (http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/forumdisplay.php?f=59) for excel. You should find some examples on how to run queries in excel.

You can try timer events on VBA (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2319683/vba-macro-on-timer-style-to-run-code-every-set-number-of-seconds-i-e-120-secon) . This can let you refresh data periodically very easily.

Also would recommend not to run CPU / DB intensive code in less intervals ie very frequently.