> For reports, everyone else mostly uses other tools? I'd like to stay away from GUI-tools, if possible.
For reporting, usually you use the data in the database directly.
A TSV or CSV file is not a report, it’s at best a data source for your report. Going through an intermediate format is not a particularly effective approach to create reports, but if you have to (for example because you aren’t _allowed_ access to the database), generally preferred formats seem to be CSV, XML or JSON; as long as it’s a standard format. TSV is not a common choice. Are you sure your boss actually cares that it’s TSV and not, for example, CSV?
Could you expand on that a bit? What sort of tools does management use to generate reports from the database directly?
You're meaning a database warehouse? We just have an OLTP db, so we've always generated reports periodically through cron jobs.
Or maybe "reports" is the wrong word. We generate a bunch of db stats which can then be used however they want (pulled into Excel, etc.).
But would definitely be interested in learning about other approaches.
And yes, I'm sure we could convert everything over to CSV. Just an issue of inertia.