title: User-friendly tools for retrieving data from a SQL Server database
body: <p>We have several SQL Server databases containing measurements from generators that we build. However, this useful data is only accessible to a few engineers since most are unfamiliar with SQL (including me). Are there any tools would allow an engineer to extract chosen subsets of the data in order to analyze it in Excel or another environment? The ideal tool would </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>protect the database from any accidental changes,</li>
  <li>require no SQL knowledge to extract data,</li>
  <li>be very easy to use, for example with a GUI to select fields and the chosen time range,</li>
  <li>allow export of the data values into a file that could be read by Excel,</li>
  <li>require no participation/input from the database manager for the extraction task to run, and</li>
  <li>be easy for a newbie database manager to set up.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Thanks for any recommendations or suggestions.</p>