Don’t use external links.
This would make more sense
Personally I’d use VBA as it’s very easy to manipulate any number of WBs or WSs at the same time.
Qlikview would make even more – it’s great for sucking data out of disparate sources and combining/manipulating it. If you really need to you can then get it to spit out a .csv file, but it’s also pretty good for making reports with.
Rob, ex-Excel developer; born again Qlikview evangelist