Links and NA

I use excel (excel 97 on a windows 2000 machine) to manage the
patient care schedules of 10 physicians -- and having been doing so
for years.

2 years ago, I started having problems with the links from the main
worksheet (the working document where ALL changes are made) to the
final worksheet which is month to month schedule and is the printed
document that everyone else sees and uses.

What happens is that when I open the month to month worksheet,
frequently it will have NA values -- not consistently -- variably.

Variably I can fix it through a variety of means (but the fixes are
temporary) -- sometimes re-closing the final worksheet and reopening
it will resolve the problem, sometimes reopening the main worksheet
first, sometimes reopening the main worksheet last, sometimes
refilling the final worksheet with the data.

This occurs sometimes after changing data and other times after no
changes in data -- just desiring to print a schedule (all print jobs
are ONLY on the final month to month worksheet). If it matters, the
print jobs always reflect what is in the worksheet - so I do NOT get a
printed worksheet with NA values but no NA values in the linked on
screen worksheet.

I have usually linked the last month of the year to the first month of
the next year ... because of these problems; I STARTED A BRAND NEW
WORKBOOK FOR 2005.

Virtually no data is in this new 2005 worksheet EXCEPT for inputed
schedules for the last week of 2004 and first week of 2005 --- it is
NOT linked to the 2004 schedule. YET -- I get the same variable result
when I open the new 2005 final month to month worksheet (which is
linked to a second worksheet which is linked to the initial 2005
schedule with a lot of extra columns.

now the specifics:
a) the main worksheet has 365 rows -- this main worksheet is the ONLY
worksheet in which schedule changes are EVER made, all of the other
worksheets are there for formatting issues
b) each row is for each day of the year
c) the first and second column are the dates of the year and the days
of the weeks
d) the next column is for a manually entered schedule such as 8:30-6,
or 8:30-12:30/adm/1:30-5 or some other combination
e) the next column 2 columns is a letter of the alphabet
f) the next column (sometimes 2-3) contains a number
g) each of d-f is repeated for EACH physician (about 3-6 columns per
physician)

this main worksheet is linked to second worksheet which ONLY contains
columns c, d and e (NOT columns f)

this second worksheet is then linked to one of 12 worksheets which is
a monthly schedule.

It is in THIS MONTHY worksheet which is in **a different workbook**
and is accessible to everyone in which the NA values turn up.

NOTE -- there are NO formulas

thoughts??

mark