golfinray wrote:

2 Questions:
1. Is it possible to link one Excel sheet to another so that when data is
changed on one it changes on the other. We do that all the time in Access,
but I don't know about Excel.

Yes. See "Create, edit, and manage connections to external data" in
Excel Help

2. I would like to have an Excel sheet on the lan that has sheet protection
and allow users to open the sheet and change the sheet as much as they want
to then save their copy, but the sheet on the lan remains unchanged.
Are these two things possible? Thanks so much!!!!

See "Create and use an Excel template" in Excel Help.