Imaginary Scenerio

You are the owner of a small GIS-based services start-up company and a client approaches your company for soliciting a quote to perform the following GIS-based services: Create digital data from paper maps of privately owned land (near the Algonquin Provincial Park) that the client owns and intends to develop an eco-tourism camp on wooded lots connected by a road and nature trails, in Whitney, Ontario. Develop a GIS model to study the potential environmental impact of the proposed development to the surrounding area including the Algonquin Provincial Park. However, the client would like to meet with you first to ask some GIS-related questions to ensure that your company is up for this task, before her lawyers and administrative team send you the RFP for this project. Her team, consisting of the following people, is ready to meet with you at her company headquarters in Orillia, Ontario today: Owner/client Project manager (also an environmental geoscientist familiar with GIS) Project coordinator (who has some rudimentary knowledge of GIS) Lawyer (who has some rudimentary knowledge of GIS)

Question

There are stand-alone MS Excel spreadsheets containing information about different features (both, natural and built) that exist on the client's property and their various attributes. The client would like to see a map generated using these features and their relative locations, so that plans for developing the land can be made in earnest. Is it possible for you to import the stand-alone MS Excel spreadsheets into the GIS and later combine them with pertinent geospatial data of the site? Are there any software-based conditions that must be met, before this can even occur?