In Excel, you can have the source data for the pivot table be an SQL query -- then the pivoting is just for presentation purposes when you get down to the very

In Excel, you can have the source data for the pivot table be an SQL query -- then the pivoting is just for presentation purposes when you get down to the very last layer of groupby's, so to speak You can also use SQL queries as sources for regular tables in Excel (i.e. no pivoting) One of my first roles out of undergrad was to take reports that would take an analyst literally days or weeks to generate into a set of SQL queries that got them very close to the answer with pivot tables (or just tables). Their job went from working on reports to changing a couple parameters in the queries like "current month" or "forecast version", which only took a couple minutes, leaving them with plenty of time to think about new reports to generate, how else to improve current reports, etc. Still one of the most personally satisfying things I've ever done. Granted we can't expect all business users to learn to write SQL (spoilers: they never will). I believe we collectively need a more robust solution than having an SQL angel come by and write queries for business users... it feels obvious and within reach, but no one has really done it yet.