Amen to that! the reverse engineering of ERDs etc used to be one of my favorite parts of Visio... why MS decided it was no longer useful is a...

This might be slightly off-topic, but the other auxiliary table that's super handy is a numbers table. (it can be virtual, like an iTVF) that has numbers from 1 to...

Nothing to it. Use a Calendar Table, and then outer join it to your Events table.

SELECT c.CalendarDate, Count(e.EventID)

FROM Calendar c LEFT JOIN Events e ON c.CalendarDate = e.EventDate

WHERE c.CalendarDate>=@StartDate...

I would start with Lynn Pettis' article[/url] on common date routines. Post back if you're still stuck.

How about

=RowNumber("Customer")

It resets every time the Customer value changes.

Sounds like you need a Tally table. Here[/url] is a link to Jeff Moden's article.

It's harder to tell without table definitions, but if you joined quantity in your query to...

You can query Facebook with PowerBI and then once it's there, probably import that using SSIS.

when does each 28-day period start?

you could calculate from the first of the year using DATEDIFF and then integer divide by 28 to get the 4-week period, and then group....

If you really want to learn, I would find a (maybe) simple problem from work, and create your database to solve it. Then try to incorporate everything that you're learning...

I agree... it's called "professional development"... definitely worthwhile, whether you take the exams or not.

I don't think you can change the default date... well, the user can't.

Do you have SQL Server Data Tools? It's not a full version of Visual Studio. That's enough to do SSIS.

NOLOCK is a no-no... don't do that unless you're aware of the nasty side effects.

here's a hint:

GETDATE() returns the current date.

Right-click your date parameter > Parameter Properties.

Available Values > Get values from Query , then choose the dataset and the value and label fields.

Same as any other dropdown in SSRS.