Hello peeps and peepettes,

I build highly customized reports only (in XI and 2008) for our demanding managers. When the report is built, I let it auto-export every morning using CR Server 2008. It exports to Excel.
Then I let the managers use a VBA module in excel to run it over the exported report. This way, the data from the exported report is copied to a Excel template, on the right sheet. And then finally it looks beautiful.


But I don't like this method. Eventually the manager needs to have tons of VBA modules for all kinds of reports, depending upon the project and whatnot.

1) Are there alternative solutions?
Can - for example - SSIS (MS SQL Server 2005) be of aid? Like creating a job that checks for the existance of a exported report and then copies the values to the excel template. This way the manager can pick up his ready-made excel workbook
I'll need to learn SSIS then, but I'd gladly do if anyone can confirm that this is a realistic solution.

2) Or perhaps It's possible to write VBA code that reads the contents of a *.rpt file and do stuff with it, like placing it in a specific cell in a specific sheet of a specific workbook.

It seems to me that just about any method is better then what I have now, but I can't think of one. I'll be jumping for joy if a better method is posted.

Greetings,
Val


Edited by Valmont - 15 Apr 2009 at 11:02am