I'm looking to create an adhoc analytical environment for intermediate users to replace our SAS E-Guide application. No one is using SAS for anything more than ad hoc queries and SAS is expensive. The typical process might be several "queries"
that create several working tables (like a select into) until they get to the final recordset. The results are then copied-pasted into Excel (I know, I know).
I'm very comfortable in SSMS, but I don't think my users are ready for T-SQL. I looked at MS Access 2010, but there are file size and performance limitations on .MDB file types. MS Access Project (ADP) might be workable since I can centralize the analytical environment in SQL Server DB. PowerPivot seems good for summaries, but troublesome for say emulating a multi-step T-SQL script.
My only other thought is to setup SQL Server Express with linked tables to the DB2 source with MS Access or SQL Server Data Tools over that to get around file size limitations.
Anyone found a workable solution with MS current suite of Office and SQL Server?