1. An open database connectivity (ODBC) compliant system for accessing data from a relational database, comprising: user input/output device for interacting with an ODBC compliant application tool accessible via a computer; an ODBC interface; an ODBC compliant template for simplifying access to complex data stored in said relational database, said template being accessible to said application tool via said ODBC interface for enabling user selection of attributes corresponding to a particular category, said attributes specifying information obtainable from data stored in said relational database and being selectable using said application tool; said ODBC compliant template being responsive to selected attributes received from said application tool via said ODBC interface, for retrieving data from said relational database and forwarding said data to said application tool via said ODBC interface for use in generating an output; wherein: said ODBC compliant template is independent of said application tool, thereby enabling a user to access information from said relational database using any one of a plurality of different application tools; and said template (i) directly accesses attributes selected via said application tool when the selected attributes are stored in the database or (ii) when the selected attributes are not stored in the database, enables complex attributes selected via said application tool to be calculated via selectively executable algorithms by obtaining data from said database that is required by said algorithms.