The ease of using cfspreadsheet (or the spreadsheet cfscript functions) to generate an XLS from a CF query.

CFML Outputting Reports to XLS

// the CFC I use to grab the data
component displayname="MemberActivity" hint="I generate reports on Member Activity"{
	
	public MemberActivity function init(){
		return this;
	}
	
	public query function getMemberLogonActivity(){
		var result = "";
		var q_service = new query();
		q_service.setDatasource(MYDSNVAR);
		q_service.setName("getMemberLogonActivity");
		q_service.setSQL(
			"SELECT first_name, last_name, email, state, registration_date, personality_factor, 
			month_1_logons, month_2_logons, month_3_logons, month_4_logons, month_5_logons, month_6_logons,
			month_7_logons, month_8_logons, month_9_logons, month_10_logons, month_11_logons, month_12_logons,
			total_annual_logons
			FROM vw_MemberLogonActivity
			WHERE total_annual_logons > 0
			ORDER BY total_annual_logons DESC"
		);
		result = q_service.execute();
		return result.getResult();
	}
	
}

// In the calling template: 
<cfscript>
	service = createObject("component","MemberActivity").init();
	activity = service.getMemberLogonActivity();
	// first we create the spreadsheet object
	spreadsheet = spreadsheetNew("memberactivityreport");
	// next we add the header row
	spreadsheetAddRow(spreadsheet,"first_name, last_name, email, state, registration_date, personality_factor, month_1_logons, month_2_logons, month_3_logons, month_4_logons, month_5_logons, month_6_logons, month_7_logons, month_8_logons, month_9_logons, month_10_logons, month_11_logons, month_12_logons, total_annual_logons");
	// I want to format my headers so that they're bold and centered
	spreadsheetFormatRow(spreadsheet,{bold=true,alignment="center"},1);
	// Ah, CFML how I love you. Just use the spreadsheetAddRows method to add your entire query to the spreadsheet
	spreadsheetAddRows(spreadsheet,activity);
	// finally, write the file to the server/file system
	spreadsheetWrite(spreadsheet,"/path/to/file/member_activity_#dateFormat(now(),'mm_dd_yyyy')#.xls");
</cfscript>

Would you be able to just provide a spreadsheetRead to read the file and .xml data?