Update: EBAX has provided us with a demo screencast so you can really see the power of the tool. Added it to the bottom of the article.

One of the problems people encounter when moving from SharePoint 2003 to 2007 is that the ability to manage SharePoint lists from within Excel has been deprecated. That functionality has been moved into MS Access. That really doesn’t help when people already have all of the data in Excel, use it as their main analytical tool for that data, and have been comfortable in that environment for years.

I found a small vendor called “EBAX” at a booth in isle 700 at SharePoint Conference. The name of the tool still doesn’t make sense to me, but the functionality is a knockout.

This little tool lets you download data from your SharePoint lists and then update it from within Excel. That’s cool, but it also allows you to create relational data between two lists! You also have the ability to work-offline and then sync when you get connectivity, merge updates and do reporting directly against the list.

Connecting to your SharePoint list is dead simple through the ribbon interface. Select your site and list, then click “Populate Data”. EBAX downloads the list data into Excel. Then, have at it! EBAX let’s you manage the data locally and then, by clicking “Update Data” push the updates back into SharePoint.

This thing is WSS and MOSS compatible, no server installation needed.

There’s not much info on the EBAX site, it’s nothing more than a shopping cart, but the 14 day downloadable trial is definitely worth a try. I’ll talk with them again today to see if I can have them put up a video demo and give me a discount code for you.

Worth your time to check it out.

Update: I’ve setup a signup form if you want to be notified when I receive a discount code. Really nice tool.