Don't blame SQL Server if your SQL Statements perform badly! But where do you start to investigate the problem? This article is a primer on were to start looking when your SQL runs slowly.  Read more...

This article has a T-SQL function to detect the SQL Agent job state.  Read more...

The TSQL aggregate function SUM() gives a number based on the addition of the values of multiple rows to each other. Do the same thing but with multiplication instead of addition.   Read more...

This article takes a closer look at SQL Server getdate() and sysdatetime() functions.  Read more...

Be careful while using the ISNULL function  Read more...

Learn how to post a Twitter status update with 5 lines of T-SQL using a third party library.  Read more...

Steve Jones learns a new trick working with T-SQL, and is surprised how easy it is. He recommends you work on updating your skills over time as well.  Read more...

Revisiting his very popular article on the running total and ordinal rank problems, MVP Jeff Moden brings us a detailed analysis of how you might want to implement a solution in T-SQL.  Read more...

This article presents an easy method to get YTD data grouped by months in T-SQL.  Read more...

Do sub query expressions introduce a performance penalty on retrieving large data sets?  Read more...

The second of a series by Paul White examining the APPLY operator. In this section learn how this operator compares with joins and about both the cross and outer options.  Read more...

In this article I will be expanding on my discussion of the GROUP BY clause by exploring the ROLLUP, CUBE and GROUPING SETS operators. These additional GROUP BY operators make it is easy to have SQL Server create subtotals, grand totals, a superset of subtotals, as well as multiple aggregate groupings in a single SELECT statement.  Read more...

The first of a two-part series of articles examining the APPLY operator. Learn the basics of how this operator works and how it can help you solve some tricky problems.  Read more...

Microsoft Office Word is useful. There, I have confessed it, it's useful to me while I am working with TSQL. It's possibly only the search and replace function that I like but it's wrapped in Word so I have to take it like that. I use it a lot to help me capture the results of a stored procedure.  Read more...

In this article you will be see how to group data using the simple GROUP BY clause, in order to summarize more complex data.  Read more...

With the release of Master Data Services (MDS) for SQL Server 2008R2, it is now possible to perform XML transformations on the database server.  Read more...

This article shows how to use 6 SQL table-based tools to solve the same problem, and gives the pros and cons of each.  Read more...

Longtime author and expert DBA David Poole examines a few T-SQL commands that he has never used. Learn how some of these little used T-SQL items function and see if they work for you.  Read more...

We often use excel for any running repetitive calculations since it is a very convenient user friendly interface which allows us to just enter a formula in a cell and simply drag and drop the formulas to generate a complete output.   Read more...

In this Level you will see how to use the ORDER BY clause to return your data in a sorted order.  Read more...