Access to SQL-database, SQL-rapporting

Question

I am looking for software that allows non-sql users to access an SQL-database, and set up data exports fast and easy.

Background:

My company has a lot of data in our SQL-database. We do not have any good tools to get the data out to the rest of the company, without spending a lot of time setting up SQL-calls in excel, R or similiar.

The SQL-calls are the same, but dynamic in terms of time.

• The users would want the same specific data, that would always contain the newest data, or a fixed period of data, given a choice of data.
• The data should be exported in a easy-to-use format such as .csv.
• The export needs to be run automatically, so the same data is exported at a specific time each day, without active user interaction.

We've tried Microsoft Report manager, didn't find it satisfying.

Answer 1

I would recommend you to use an ETL (wikipedia), it will help you extracting data, optionnally transform then load it to any other database, report, or even flat files (CSV, Excel, or whatever).

There are many tools you can check, have a look at Talend Open Studio, it supposed to provide you easy and elegant way build ETL jobs without writing a single code line

Answer 2

Full disclosure, I work at Windward.

Windward's solution is built on top of Microsoft Office (Word/Excel/PowerPoint). Template design is done in that tool AutoTag. We then have a separate engine built on both Java and .NET frameworks that you can integrate into an application.

This might be of value as your users probably are familiar with doing layout and design work in Office already. Windward's tool builds on top of that by allowing your users to connect to your SQL DB and drag and drop tag placeholders. We have a custom built SQL wizard that allows your users to build SQL queries by dragging and dropping items. If this is too difficult, you can always use views and stored procedures in our tags.

If you want to make it dead simple for your users, you can build blocks of reporting template elements and save them as Windward POD objects. This allows you to capture anything in an MS Office document and save it as a reusable drag/drop object. Basically your users do not have to know much about Windward, just drag the quarterly sales chart and table to a point in the document and run the report.

Here is a link of how our solution works from the top down.

This is a sample .NET app integration to see how an end users interacts with the product

Ryan Fligg