At one place I worked, we used to have DTS packages to promote data from one environment to another when necessary when it was on the SQL Server side and the DBA was responsible for it. When a developer was responsible and didn't have the foresight to consult a DBA, then they usually built some kind of custom application for the sole purpose of importing the data.

Later, someone realized that importing from a table in dev or test wasn't ideal since the data could be modified there and no red flags would be raised. So we adopted the process of dumping the data to a text file and either checking it into source control or at least noting the date and time it was last modified. Then the file could be imported with a DTS package. This solution pleased the change control overlords.