Until you receive a better solution, try this. I made a formula for the task. I'm not sure how references to REPORT.XLS will work, because I have seen full path of the file in the formula, whereas I've only put "INDEX([REPORT.xls]Project1!$1:$65536;" there. Excel seems to be aware of file locations as well. Nevertheless, the formula can be copied to any cell of interest. Also, I'm not sure if parameters of CELL function translate well, so I give what I think is the English equivalent. This goes into cell D2.

=IF(ISNUMBER(INDEX([REPORT.xls]Project1!$1:$65536,CELL("row",D2)+1,(CELL("column",D2)-3)*7+1)),"not requested",IF(ISNUMBER(INDEX([REPORT.xls]Project1!$1:$65536,CELL("row",D2)+1,(CELL("column",D2)-3)*7+2)),"absent",""))

(I see the formula is cut in two by the forum software. It's actually 1 line)

HTH
Jimmy