What database software? Microsoft Office Access?

For what it's worth, I'm solving a problem at work today by using Microsoft Office Excel to store data where it can easily be edited in a controlled way — in a protected worksheet with both locked and unlocked cells — by colleagues who are masterful with Excel, but frightened of Access. I've linked the Excel worksheet to an Access database where my Perl script can much more easily query the data using SQL and the Perl DBI. So I'm leveraging Excel for its ease of user input and maintenance and Access for its ease of data access.

I've only ever read good things about Spreadsheet::ParseExcel, but I've never had the time to sit down, pore over its fine documentation and study its many terrific examples.

I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, but hopefully I've suggested something that might be helpful to you now or in the future.