Time Series Analysis in SQL Server

Explore ways to work with date and time data in SQL Server for time series analysis

SQL Server has a robust set of tools to prepare, aggregate, and query time series data. This course will show you how to build and work with dates, parse dates from strings (and deal with invalid strings), and format dates for reporting. From there, you will see how SQL Server's built-in aggregation operators and window functions can solve important business problems like calculating running totals, finding moving averages, and displaying month-over-month differences using realistic sample data sets. You will also see how taking a different perspective on your data can solve difficult problems.

• Working with Dates and Times
• This chapter covers date and time functionality in SQL Server, including building dates from component parts, formatting dates for reporting, and working with calendar tables.
• Converting to Dates and Times
• Here, we'll be converting strings and other inputs to date and time data types.
• Aggregating Time Series Data
• In this chapter, we will learn techniques to aggregate data over time. We will briefly review aggregation functions and statistical aggregation functions. We will cover upsampling and downsampling of data. Finally, we will look at the grouping operators.
• Answering Time Series Questions with Window Functions
• In this chapter, we will learn how to use window functions to perform calculations over time, including calculating running totals and moving averages, calculating intervals, and finding the maximum levels of overlap.