Introduction to SQL Server

No prior SQL experience is required. The course starts with basic SELECT statements and builds from there, so comfort with general data concepts — such as tables and rows — is enough to get started.

Analysts and data professionals who want to query and manipulate data in Microsoft SQL Server. It is particularly useful for those coming from Excel who want to work with larger datasets more efficiently.

T-SQL is Microsoft's implementation of SQL, used specifically with SQL Server. It adds functions and syntax not found in standard SQL, such as built-in date functions like DATEPART and DATEDIFF, and features like DECLARE and SET for working with variables.

Most exercises use the Chinook database, a sample digital media store covering artists, tracks, and sales. The course also uses a classic rock song dataset, Eurovision voting data, and US power outage records to practice grouping, string manipulation, and date calculations across different scenarios.

You will be able to retrieve and filter data with SELECT and WHERE, aggregate results with GROUP BY, join multiple tables, clean and manipulate text with string functions, work with dates, and create and update simple tables using INSERT and UPDATE.

The course has four chapters. Chapter 1 covers SELECT, filtering, and ordering. Chapter 2 introduces aggregations, string functions, and GROUP BY. Chapter 3 covers joins and UNION. Chapter 4 focuses on creating tables, inserting data, using variables, and combining these skills in a final exercise.