Jeff Moden (10/5/2008)
"If you limit what they can read to simple views, you also keep control of the queries so they don't crush the server performance wise."- and -
"You can either spend time writing custom automations for all 50 users, or you can teach them to become self sufficient.
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I fully and whole-heartedly believe in the principle, "Teach them correct principles and they govern themselves." Seeing your point to a point, but then it has not stopped the problems of needing to dubunk what they do with the data.
In so many words or less you are actually taking TWO steps:
1. Teaching
2. Creating controlled sources of output they can use to effectively limit what they may want to do to munge the data.
Herein lies the the delta: Judging how much time to spend creating the various views and rights to view, and dealing with how they rollup, pivot, and analyze the data.
When the numbers do not match, it is back in your lap anyway. Notice I did not use "If". And remember, I noted that I have these issues more with those who feel they know Excel... not the new learners... the new ones do not usually know enough to even get themselves into trouble. The problem lies in the fact that both the Views they need, and the report crunching layout needs to be handled.
So when a report becomes adopted between more than a couple people, I mold it on report server, so that all they have to do is copy it down (if they must) with little or no munging. If the analytical mistakes of others did not come to haunt me so, then I would be more apt to just teach... heh... would even prefer to just teach.