I have a base sheet that needs to be able to be saved each month and
point to a separate file that will be saved each month. My final users
of this base sheet will not be able to get in and change the reference
to show a call from file datajan06.xls to datafeb06.xls, etc.... so
Data and .xls will always be the same, however the month and year will
need to change.

I would like to make a cell that says Jan06 and the user can change
that to Feb06 which will then tell the reference to change the file it
is pulling from ... ie. changes dataXXXXX.xls from datajan06.xls to
datafeb06.xls and thus changes the file it is pulling the data from...

I have used indirect to create a field reference to a field with a
formula of ="data"&Attendence!C1&".xls" so that if C1 on the attendence
page says Jan06 then the file is datajan06.xls.

This does not seem to translate into a working formula...

=IF(Attendence!B5="", "", '[dataXXXXX.xls]Sheet1'!$H3)

Any suggestions?