Hi Pete and welcome to the world of DNN! Great to have yet another Aussie on board. :) 
Unfortunately, there isn't a DNN project module for either of these purposes at this point.

Hello, another ozzie here, I do not know enough about DNN being new as well, so in that i am not up to speed with how the excel plug in goes or what functions it can or can not do within the bounds of DNN, but i can say i have built a TXT message system operating in excel that is run by matching a user name looked up in a data base in relation to postcode entered into the system.

What this then does is sends an email to a third party operator ( TXT msge company ) that converts the email and message in it to be sent pretty well straight away, we use this system for a national sales team of over 50 personnel across Australia ( but can cover as many people as needed ), but to marry it to DNN / the excel add-on i can not confirm.

It may be coming to think of it ( just outside of the box ), that you could use the forms module, this is a great module that allows all sorts of dial ups etc and many outward bound emails being able to configured to it, so that being the case depending on exactly what when where the outward bound email form can be sent to the third party as we do in excel, this would then trigger the TXT message without a drama

If you have a contact email or some other means of contact i can email you the third party company details etc if you wish.

Pete