This is a tossup between whether it belongs on Stack Overflow or Server Fault (but since I am not a developer, and am looking for a no-code solution, I'm starting with SF).
Is there an easy way to populate a SharePoint list with data from an external SQL database? In SharePoint designer, it is a simple matter to create a connection to a SQL database for using the data view web part, but I need the data from a SQL table to populate a SharePoint list. Is there a no-code way to do so?
Edit: Although there are certainly ways of exporting data from the SQL table and importing it into my list, I am looking to have the connection be live so that a column in my SharePoint list is always up-to-date with a master data source stored in a different SQL database.
Best Answer
Another option that you can look into is the Business Data Catalog. While this is more complicated it does allow you to have a SharePoint view of the data. The downside to this is that it does require the Enterprise edition and pretty advanced skills to get the BDC configured to point to your custom database.
Since you said you are not a developer, I would tend to lead away from the BDC unless you are able to hire someone to configure this for you.