Move to SQL Connections & Report Improvements

Hi,

In my current job I am responsible for a lot of reporting and also for making recommendations for improvements, to systems and processes. My current methods with building and updating reports are a result of the systems that were here when I started; basically Access, Excel and some online data sources. My general method is to extract data from the online tools via Excel exports and manually import these into Access to update tables. I then use lots of ODBC connections from Access to Excel to allow reports to be updated via refreshes.

These are methods I have picked up from former colleagues and I am now questioning their efficiency, particularly as some reports are now frequently giving ODBC errors (I think this is due to some reports have many connections, so requiring many refreshes...)

I also want to move away from the manual exports and imports of data to having SQL access to the database tables of the online tools. I need to make a case for this but I have a problem in that I am not exactly sure how this will work. I know the IT team in my office use MySQL but that's about it.... I am confident I would be able to learn whatever is necessary once I have access to the system but am not even sure what to request - i.e. how do I link MySQL (if that's what's needed) to my reporting methods?

I am not sure this is the right place to ask this but any suggestions, or directions to a more relevant forum, would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Jamie

We have all our tables connected via ODBC. Once connected you never have to reconnect them.

The ONLY time you must refresh them is if they modify the table. This should not be happeing, but if they ARE modifying the tables that often,
then simply run a refresh on the table and you should be back in business.

Thanks for your comment but it wasn't really what I was asking for. Largely my ODBC connections have worked ok, with periodic refreshes working well. But the whole process of manual updates etc is very time consuming. I want to move to SQL connections but am unsure what to request of my IT department as I am not exactly sure how this will work.