Excel has some data analysis tools.

Some time ago, I investigated tools with which the end-user could create his own reports, and stumbled upon Seagate Analysis. It is the same company that produces Crystal Reports, but this one is (or was) free.

The data cube is especially impressive; basically, the user says what criteria should go from left to right, and what criteria from top to bottom. Columns and rows are generated automatically, according to this criteria. This is excellent for a quick analysis, where the end-user specifies the criteria, without the need to write a complicated program for each set of criteria!

>James/Brian,
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>I'm been working on my trying to develop my own designer...and the deeper I get into it, the more complex it becomes. Actually the application (faunal data) is for my daughter in graduate school. She has a number of tables and wants a very flexible selection option combining data from the tables. Now I've got to come up with a solution that allows her to work with data without my help.
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>Stonefield has web demo, will take that and then decide. The cost is quite reasonable.
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>Thanks again...
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>Ken
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>Ken,
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>>As David indicated, View Designer is available only at design time. You would have to write your own designer that is easy enough for users to figure out -- not a simple task.
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>>We wrote one about six years ago -- it worked -- but it was a monster and difficult to maintain. Additionally, no matter what insane user action we anticipated, the users managed to come up with still others even more insane.
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>>When Henning came up with Stonefield Query, I nominated him for King. I don't think the nomination went anywhere, however. So far as I know, Canada is still a Republic.
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>>The cost of Stonefield Query is truly paltry compared to the time involved in designing a query process of your own.
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>>Regards,