You can do a lot of this by simply using VBA from Excel. I've done it both ways. If the structure and formatting of the spreadsheet requires knowledge of the data, or maybe if it is a timed report, or requested report, to be sent out via email using an Excel file attachment, then I do it from TSQL. Where it is a much simpler report than VBA is the obvious strategy. There are a lot of ways of producing Excel spreadsheets from database data, and the more techniques you have in your armory, the more likely you are to find one that is a good fit for a particular requirement.