I work as a test engineer at a big company. In my department people create a lot of measurement data all the time. Usually it's in the form of xy-data like an acceleration vs time series. It can also be something like x,y,z,t or so. All this data is generated with a proprietary measurement software and stored in project files. So over time we have tons of different projects from this software which are scattered over all the computers of my colleagues.
If someone wants to access a measurment, usually the data is opened in the proprietary software and copied by hand in an excel chart. Usually it then gets presented using PowerPoint.
As I find this approach rather burdensome I would like to change that and store the data in a central, structured database of some kind. Therefor I need a recommendation on how to do that? Via VBA I can use ActiveX to access the files of the proprietary measurment software and automatically import them into Excel. Now I don't know what to do further. My colleagues eventually want to use the data in Microsoft Office.
How can I store all this data in a structured way while still making it easy for my colleagues to access the data and work with them in Office? Would Microsoft Access be a good tool for that?
R, etc