accessing user ids, is what i'm doing already out there?

[uschxc]

Hi, I'm brand spankin new to joomla as i'm finding its the base of my company's CMS. We are looking to a system for employees to make weekely progress reports on different job orders, with administrator rights to view total work for each job order.

i wrote something like this in my last job in php/mysql, but it was for the government so i don't own it. I'm interested in writing a php app to do what i want and tie it into joomla as far using the exisiting user set and (what i'm guessing is) their current unique ids as user ids in the seperate progress report database i'll write.

if something like this exists, or can with modifying an exisiting plugin that would be great.

i appreciate all the help in advance.

-adam