I'm writing a SSRS report that is the direct result of a SSIS package.
It is my understanding that SSIS must have exclusive access to Excel files for import. Is there any way around this?
If I can't read what was there as of the last save, can I at least send an e-mail notifying the user of the failure? How do I catch that error?
This seems like a limitation of the Jet connection engine and Excel, by default, opens files in exclusive access mode. If there is only one or two people using the file, then you may be able to have them open the file in shared access mode to avoid this error. Or, since this is ultimately a Jet database engine connection, you might be able to specify in your connection string that you open it in Mode=Read.