SQL Practice Problems

57 beginning, intermediate, and advanced

challenges for you to solve using a "learn-by-
doing" approach

Sylvia Moestl Vasilik

 Copyright © 2016
by Sylvia Moestl Vasilik

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
written permission
of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations
in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1540422651

Ordering Information:
Special discounts are available on quantity purchases
by corporations, associations, and others. For details,
contact the publisher at
[email protected].
How to use this book
This edition of SQL Practice Problems assumes that
you have some basic background knowledge about
relational databases and tables. However, I’ve added
some beginner level questions to gradually introduce
the various parts of the SQL Select statement for those
with less experience in SQL.
A note on the database used—the database used for
these problems, which you will set up in the in the
Installation Instructions, is not the standard Northwind
database. There have been multiple modifications
made to it, including additional tables, and modified
data, to support the problems in this book. Do not try
to use the standard Northwind sample database that
came with previous installations of SQL Server, many
of the problems will not work.
Do you need to finish all the problems? Absolutely
not. The introductory problems are fairly simple, so
you may want to skip directly to the Intermediate
Problems section. If you’re not a beginner, but not sure
where you should start, just take a look at the
problems and expected results in the Introductory
Problems section and make sure you understand the
concepts. If you do, start working on the Intermediate
Problems section.
If you’re uncertain about how to start on a problem,
the hints are designed to gradually walk you through
how to approach each problem. Try hard to solve the
problems first without the hints! The information will
stick better if you can do that. But if you’re stuck, the
hints will get you starting in thinking with a data
mindset.
If there’s code you want to copy from this book and
run on your server—believe it or not, I recommend that
you actually type it out, instead of copying and
pasting. Why go to the hassle of re-typing something?
Science shows that the act of typing establishes it
more firmly in your mind. Sometimes when you just
copy and paste, the code just goes directly from one
window in your computer to another, without making
much impression on your memory. But when you type
it out, you have to focus much more, and that helps
tremendously with retaining the information.
Should you search online for answers, examples, etc.?
Absolutely. I expect you do research online throughout
the book, and in many places it’s necessary. I do not
include all the syntax in this book. In my day-to-day
work as a data engineer, I would be lost without being
able to do online research. Sometimes I search online
just for a reminder of a certain syntax, sometimes for
examples of a particular type of code, and sometimes
for approaches to specific problems. Learning to find
answers online effectively can cut your problem-
solving time dramatically.
Once you finish all the questions, you’ll have some
very useful skills in data analysis and advanced Select
statement usage. This isn’t all there is to SQL, of
course. There’s also the syntax that let’s you actually
modify data (update, insert, delete), DDL (data
definition language, i.e. how to create and modify
database objects), programming concept such as stored
procedures, and of course many other topics.
In this book, I’m only presenting problems involving
retrieving data with Select statements, because that’s
an area where it’s hard for people to get solid practice
with real life data problems, without actually working
as a data engineer or programmer. It’s also a critical
first step for almost any of the other database topics.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. For any
questions or issues, please send email to
[email protected] and I will be
happy to respond.
Thank you for purchasing this book!
Table of Contents
How to use this book
Setup
Introductory Problems
1. Which shippers do we have?
2. Certain fields from Categories
3. Sales Representatives
4. Sales Representatives in the United States
5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID
6. Suppliers and ContactTitles
7. Products with “queso” in ProductName
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium
9. Orders shipping to any country in Latin America
10. Employees, in order of age
11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime field
12. Employees full name
13. OrderDetails amount per line item
14. How many customers?
15. When was the first order?
16. Countries where there are customers
17. Contact titles for customers
 18. Products with associated supplier names
19. Orders and the Shipper that was used
Intermediate Problems
20. Categories, and the total products in each
category
21. Total customers per country/city
22. Products that need reordering
23. Products that need reordering, continued
24. Customer list by region
25. High freight charges
26. High freight charges - 2015
27. High freight charges with between
28. High freight charges - last year
29. Inventory list
30. Customers with no orders
31. Customers with no orders for EmployeeID 4
Advanced Problems
32. High-value customers
33. High-value customers - total orders
34. High-value customers - with discount
35. Month-end orders
36. Orders with many line items
37. Orders - random assortment
38. Orders - accidental double-entry
39. Orders - accidental double-entry details
40. Orders - accidental double-entry details, derived
table
41. Late orders
42. Late orders - which employees?
43. Late orders vs. total orders
44. Late orders vs. total orders - missing employee
45. Late orders vs. total orders - fix null
46. Late orders vs. total orders - percentage
47. Late orders vs. total orders - fix decimal
48. Customer grouping
49. Customer grouping - fix null
50. Customer grouping with percentage
51. Customer grouping - flexible
52. Countries with suppliers or customers
53. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 2
54. Countries with suppliers or customers - version
3
55. First order in each country
56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period
57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period,
version 2
ANSWERS
Introductory Problems
1. Which shippers do we have?
2. Certain fields from Categories
3. Sales Representatives
4. Sales Representatives in the United States
5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID
6. Suppliers and ContactTitles
7. Products with “queso” in ProductName
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium
9. Orders shipping to any country in Europe
10. Employees, in order of age
11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime field
12. Employees full name
13. OrderDetails amount per line item
14. How many customers?
15. When was the first order?
16. Countries where there are customers
17. Contact titles for customers
18. Products with associated supplier names
19. Orders and the Shipper that was used
Intermediate Problems
 20. Categories, and the total products in each
category
21. Total customers per country/city
22. Products that need reordering
23. Products that need reordering, continued
24. Customer list by region
25. High freight charges
26. High freight charges - 2015
27. High freight charges with between
28. High freight charges - last year
29. Inventory list
30. Customers with no orders
31. Customers with no orders for EmployeeID 4
Advanced Problems
32. High-value customers
33. High-value customers - total orders
34. High-value customers - with discount
35. Month-end orders
36. Orders with many line items
37. Orders - random assortment
38. Orders - accidental double-entry
39. Orders - accidental double-entry details
40. Orders - accidental double-entry details, derived
table
41. Late orders
42. Late orders - which employees?
43. Late orders vs. total orders
44. Late orders vs. total orders - missing employee
45. Late orders vs. total orders - fix null
46. Late orders vs. total orders - percentage
47. Late orders vs. total orders - fix decimal
48. Customer grouping
49. Customer grouping - fix null
50. Customer grouping with percentage
51. Customer grouping - flexible
52. Countries with suppliers or customers
53. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 2
54. Countries with suppliers or customers - version
3
55. First order in each country
56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period
57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period,
version 2
Setup
This section will help you install Microsoft SQL
Server 2016, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
and also walk you through setting up the practice
database. The setup of Microsoft SQL Server 2016 and
SSMS will take about 45 minutes, with about 5
minutes of interaction here and there. It may take one
or two reboots of your system, depending on which
version of certain support files you have (dot.net
framework).
SQL Server 2016 will run with more recent versions of
Windows, including Windows 8 and Windows 10.
Please review this requirements page
(https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms143506.aspx) for full details.
Install Steps
Pre-setup - To download the backup file necessary in
step 3, as well as a PDF version of this book and a
SQL setup script to use if you already have SQL
Server 2012 or SQL Server 2014, go to
www.SQLPracticeProblems.com. Click on the “Buy
Now” button. Don’t worry, you don’t actually have to
buy anything. Use the 100% off coupon code
“KCSPurch” to bypass the credit card information, and
get a download link sent directly to your email for free.
You may want to consider viewing this book via the
PDF instead of the paper or Kindle copy, since you’ll
be able to click on the links, and copy and paste code
more easily.
Note: If you already have SQL Server 2012 or 2014
installed, and don’t want to install SQL Server 2016,
you don’t need to. There’s a setup script called
Northwind2012.sql (also works for SQL Server 2014)
included in the zipped file that will allow you to use
your existing version. Open that file, and follow the
instructions. You can then skip all the below steps.

1. Install MS SQL Server Express Edition 2016 -

Download and install MS SQL Server Express Edition
2016 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-cy/sql-server/sql-
server-editions-express). It’s a free download, and the
Express Edition, unlike the Developer Edition, doesn’t
require you to jump through any hoops with
Live.Microsoft.com subscriptions.Feel free to do the
Basic install unless you need it to go in a particular
location on your hard drive.
The install of Express Edition and SSMS (in the next
step) will take about 45 minutes. Almost all of this is
hands-off. A reboot may be required, depending on
some of your system files.
2. SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 2016 -
Download and install SQL Server Management Studio
(SSMS) 2016 (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/mt238290.aspx).This is the tool that allows
you to interact with SQL Server. You can either do this
as a part of the MS SQL Server Express Edition 2016
install (there’s a link at the bottom), or download it
directly.
3. Move the practice database - The Northwind
database backup file is included in the zip file that you
downloaded. Unzip the file Northwind2016.bak and
place it in the backup directory of your SQL Server
Express Edition install. With the Basic install, the
default location is here: C:\Program Files\Microsoft
SQL
Server\MSSQL13.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Backup.
This practice database is based on the Microsoft
sample Northwind database, but it’s been substantially
modified, so in order to be able to solve the problems,
you’ll need this version.
4. Setup the practice database - Follow the
instructions on this video
(https://www.youtube.com/embed/mBLhXiXIHW0?
rel=0) to restore the practice database that you just
downloaded onto your freshly installed SQL Server.

Questions or problems with the setup? Email me at

[email protected]
Introductory Problems
1. Which shippers do we have?
We have a table called Shippers. Return all the fields
from all the shippers
Expected Results
ShipperID CompanyName Phone
----------- ---------------------------------------- ------------------------
1 Speedy Express (503) 555-9831
2 United Package (503) 555-3199
3 Federal Shipping (503) 555-9931

(3 row(s) affected)
Hint
The standard format for a select statement that returns
all columns and all rows is “Select * from
TableName”.
2. Certain fields from Categories
In the Categories table, selecting all the fields using
this SQL:
Select * from Categories
…will return 4 columns. We only want to see two
columns, CategoryName and Description.
Expected Results
CategoryName Description
--------------- ----------------------------------------------------------
Beverages Soft drinks, coffees, teas, beers, and ales
Condiments Sweet and savory sauces, relishes, spreads, and seasonings
Confections Desserts, candies, and sweet breads
Dairy Products Cheeses
Grains/Cereals Breads, crackers, pasta, and cereal
Meat/Poultry Prepared meats
Produce Dried fruit and bean curd
Seafood Seaweed and fish

(8 row(s) affected)
Hint
Instead of * in the Select statement, specify the column
names with a comma between them
3. Sales Representatives
We’d like to see just the FirstName, LastName, and
HireDate of all the employees with the Title of Sales
Representative. Write a SQL statement that returns
only those employees.
Expected Results
FirstName LastName HireDate
---------- -------------------- -----------------------
Nancy Davolio 2010-05-01 00:00:00.000
Janet Leverling 2010-04-01 00:00:00.000
Margaret Peacock 2011-05-03 00:00:00.000
Michael Suyama 2011-10-17 00:00:00.000
Robert King 2012-01-02 00:00:00.000
Anne Dodsworth 2012-11-15 00:00:00.000

(6 row(s) affected)
Hint
To filter out only certain rows from a table, use a
Where clause. The format for a where clause with a
string filter is:
Where
FieldName = 'Filter Text'
4. Sales Representatives in the United
States
Now we’d like to see the same columns as above, but
only for those employees that both have the title of
Sales Representative, and also are in the United States.
Expected Results
FirstName LastName HireDate
---------- -------------------- -----------------------
Nancy Davolio 2010-05-01 00:00:00.000
Janet Leverling 2010-04-01 00:00:00.000
Margaret Peacock 2011-05-03 00:00:00.000

(3 row(s) affected)
Hint
To apply multiple filters in a where clause, use “and”
to separate the filters.
5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID
Show all the orders placed by a specific employee. The
EmployeeID for this Employee (Steven Buchanan) is
5.
Expected Results
OrderID OrderDate
----------- -----------------------
10248 2014-07-04 08:00:00.000
10254 2014-07-11 02:00:00.000
10269 2014-07-31 00:00:00.000
10297 2014-09-04 21:00:00.000
10320 2014-10-03 12:00:00.000
10333 2014-10-18 18:00:00.000
10358 2014-11-20 05:00:00.000
10359 2014-11-21 14:00:00.000
10372 2014-12-04 10:00:00.000
10378 2014-12-10 00:00:00.000
10397 2014-12-27 17:00:00.000
10463 2015-03-04 13:00:00.000
10474 2015-03-13 16:00:00.000
10477 2015-03-17 02:00:00.000
10529 2015-05-07 01:00:00.000
10549 2015-05-27 03:00:00.000
10569 2015-06-16 15:00:00.000
10575 2015-06-20 22:00:00.000
10607 2015-07-22 09:00:00.000
10648 2015-08-28 22:00:00.000
10649 2015-08-28 00:00:00.000
10650 2015-08-29 06:00:00.000
10654 2015-09-02 07:00:00.000
10675 2015-09-19 06:00:00.000
10711 2015-10-21 03:00:00.000
10714 2015-10-22 03:00:00.000
10721 2015-10-29 08:00:00.000
10730 2015-11-05 07:00:00.000
10761 2015-12-02 08:00:00.000
10812 2016-01-02 02:00:00.000
10823 2016-01-09 17:00:00.000
10841 2016-01-20 21:00:00.000
10851 2016-01-26 00:00:00.000
10866 2016-02-03 01:00:00.000
10869 2016-02-04 09:00:00.000
10870 2016-02-04 12:00:00.000
10872 2016-02-05 06:00:00.000
10874 2016-02-06 14:00:00.000
10899 2016-02-20 09:00:00.000
10922 2016-03-03 02:00:00.000
10954 2016-03-17 16:00:00.000
11043 2016-04-22 17:00:00.000

(42 row(s) affected)

Hint
The EmployeeID is an integer field, and not a string
field. So, the value “5” does not need to be surrounded
by single quotes in the where clause.
6. Suppliers and ContactTitles
In the Suppliers table, show the SupplierID,
ContactName, and ContactTitle for those Suppliers
whose ContactTitle is not Marketing Manager.
Expected Results
SupplierID ContactName ContactTitle
----------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------
1 Charlotte Cooper Purchasing Manager
2 Shelley Burke Order Administrator
3 Regina Murphy Sales Representative
5 Antonio del Valle Saavedra Export Administrator
6 Mayumi Ohno Marketing Representative
8 Peter Wilson Sales Representative
9 Lars Peterson Sales Agent
11 Petra Winkler Sales Manager
12 Martin Bein International Marketing Mgr.
13 Sven Petersen Coordinator Foreign Markets
14 Elio Rossi Sales Representative
16 Cheryl Saylor Regional Account Rep.
17 Michael Björn Sales Representative
18 Guylène Nodier Sales Manager
19 Robb Merchant Wholesale Account Agent
20 Chandra Leka Owner
21 Niels Petersen Sales Manager
22 Dirk Luchte Accounting Manager
23 Anne Heikkonen Product Manager
24 Wendy Mackenzie Sales Representative
26 Giovanni Giudici Order Administrator
27 Marie Delamare Sales Manager
28 Eliane Noz Sales Representative
29 Chantal Goulet Accounting Manager

(24 row(s) affected)

Hint
To learn how to do the “not”, you can search online for
SQL comparison operators.
7. Products with “queso” in ProductName
In the products table, we’d like to see the ProductID
and ProductName for those products where the
ProductName includes the string “queso”.
Expected Results
ProductID ProductName
----------- ----------------------------------------
11 Queso Cabrales
12 Queso Manchego La Pastora

(2 row(s) affected)
Hint
In an earlierproblem, we were looking for exact
matches — where our filter matched the value in the
field exactly. Here, we’re looking for rows where the
ProductName field has the value “queso” somewhere
in it.
Use the “like” operator, with wildcards, in the answer.
Feel free to do some research online to find examples.
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium
Looking at the Orders table, there’s a field called
ShipCountry. Write a query that shows the OrderID,
CustomerID, and ShipCountry for the orders where the
ShipCountry is either France or Belgium.
Expected Results
OrderID CustomerID ShipCountry
----------- ---------- ---------------
10248 VINET France
10251 VICTE France
10252 SUPRD Belgium
10265 BLONP France
10274 VINET France
10295 VINET France
10297 BLONP France
10302 SUPRD Belgium
10311 DUMON France
10331 BONAP France
10334 VICTE France
10340 BONAP France
10350 LAMAI France
10358 LAMAI France

... (skipping some rows)

10923 LAMAI France

10927 LACOR France
10930 SUPRD Belgium
10932 BONAP France
10940 BONAP France
10964 SPECD France
10971 FRANR France
10972 LACOR France
10973 LACOR France
10978 MAISD Belgium
11004 MAISD Belgium
11035 SUPRD Belgium
11038 SUPRD Belgium
11043 SPECD France
11051 LAMAI France
11076 BONAP France

(96 row(s) affected)

Hint
In the where clause, instead of combining the filters
with an “and” use the “or”.
9. Orders shipping to any country in Latin
America
Now, instead of just wanting to return all the orders
from France of Belgium, we want to show all the
orders from any Latin American country. But we don’t
have a list of Latin American countries in a table in the
Northwind database. So, we’re going to just use this
list of Latin American countries that happen to be in
the Orders table:
Brazil
Mexico
Argentina
Venezuela
It doesn’t make sense to use multiple Or statements
anymore, it would get too convoluted. Use the In
statement.
Expected Results
OrderID CustomerID ShipCountry
----------- ---------- ---------------
10250 HANAR Brazil
10253 HANAR Brazil
10256 WELLI Brazil
10257 HILAA Venezuela
10259 CENTC Mexico
10261 QUEDE Brazil
10268 GROSR Venezuela
10276 TORTU Mexico
10283 LILAS Venezuela
10287 RICAR Brazil
10997 LILAS Venezuela

... (skipping some rows)

11014 LINOD Venezuela

11019 RANCH Argentina
11022 HANAR Brazil
11039 LINOD Venezuela
11042 COMMI Brazil
11049 GOURL Brazil
11052 HANAR Brazil
11054 CACTU Argentina
11055 HILAA Venezuela
11059 RICAR Brazil
11065 LILAS Venezuela
11068 QUEEN Brazil
11069 TORTU Mexico
11071 LILAS Venezuela
11073 PERIC Mexico

(173 row(s) affected)

Hint
Here’s an example of the previous questions, about
orders shipping to France or Belgium, done as an In
statement instead of using multiple Where clauses.
Select
OrderID
,CustomerID
,OrderDate
,ShipCountry
From Orders
where
ShipCountry in ('France','Belgium')
10. Employees, in order of age
For all the employees in the Employees table, show the
FirstName, LastName, Title, and BirthDate. Order the
results by BirthDate, so we have the oldest employees
first.
Expected Results
FirstName LastName Title BirthDate
---------- -------------------- ------------------------------ -----------------------
Margaret Peacock Sales Representative 1955-09-19
00:00:00.000
Nancy Davolio Sales Representative 1966-12-08
00:00:00.000
Andrew Fuller Vice President, Sales 1970-02-19
00:00:00.000
Steven Buchanan Sales Manager 1973-03-04
00:00:00.000
Laura Callahan Inside Sales Coordinator 1976-01-09
00:00:00.000
Robert King Sales Representative 1978-05-29
00:00:00.000
Michael Suyama Sales Representative 1981-07-02
00:00:00.000
Janet Leverling Sales Representative 1981-08-30
00:00:00.000
Anne Dodsworth Sales Representative 1984-01-27
00:00:00.000

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
You’ll need to use the Order by clause here for sorting
the results. Look online for examples.
11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime
field
In the output of the query above, showing the
Employees in order of BirthDate, we see the time of
the BirthDate field, which we don’t want. Show only
the date portion of the BirthDate field.
Expected Results
FirstName LastName Title DateOnlyBirthDate
---------- -------------------- ------------------------------ -----------------
Margaret Peacock Sales Representative 1955-09-19
Nancy Davolio Sales Representative 1966-12-08
Andrew Fuller Vice President, Sales 1970-02-19
Steven Buchanan Sales Manager 1973-03-04
Laura Callahan Inside Sales Coordinator 1976-01-09
Robert King Sales Representative 1978-05-29
Michael Suyama Sales Representative 1981-07-02
Janet Leverling Sales Representative 1981-08-30
Anne Dodsworth Sales Representative 1984-01-27

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
Use the Convert function to convert the BirthDate
column (originally a DateTime column) to a Date
column.
12. Employees full name
Show the FirstName and LastName columns from the
Employees table, and then create a new column called
FullName, showing FirstName and LastName joined
together in one column, with a space in-between.
Expected Results
FirstName LastName FullName
---------- -------------------- -------------------------------
Nancy Davolio Nancy Davolio
Andrew Fuller Andrew Fuller
Janet Leverling Janet Leverling
Margaret Peacock Margaret Peacock
Steven Buchanan Steven Buchanan
Michael Suyama Michael Suyama
Robert King Robert King
Laura Callahan Laura Callahan
Anne Dodsworth Anne Dodsworth

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
Joining two fields like this is called concatenation.
Look online for examples of string concatenation with
SQL Server.
13. OrderDetails amount per line item
In the OrderDetails table, we have the fields UnitPrice
and Quantity. Create a new field, TotalPrice, that
multiplies these two together. We’ll ignore the
Discount field for now.
In addition, show the OrderID, ProductID, UnitPrice,
and Quantity. Order by OrderID and ProductID.
Expected Results
OrderID ProductID UnitPrice Quantity TotalPrice
----------- ----------- --------------------- -------- ---------------------
10248 11 14.00 12 168.00
10248 42 9.80 10 98.00
10248 72 34.80 5 174.00
10249 14 18.60 9 167.40
10249 51 42.40 40 1696.00
10250 41 7.70 10 77.00
10250 51 42.40 35 1484.00
10250 65 16.80 15 252.00
10251 22 16.80 6 100.80
10251 57 15.60 15 234.00
10251 65 16.80 20 336.00

... (skipping some rows)

11077 13 6.00 4 24.00

11077 14 23.25 1 23.25
11077 16 17.45 2 34.90
11077 20 81.00 1 81.00
11077 23 9.00 2 18.00
11077 32 32.00 1 32.00
11077 39 18.00 2 36.00
11077 41 9.65 3 28.95
11077 46 12.00 3 36.00
11077 52 7.00 2 14.00
11077 55 24.00 2 48.00
11077 60 34.00 2 68.00
11077 64 33.25 2 66.50
11077 66 17.00 1 17.00
11077 73 15.00 2 30.00
11077 75 7.75 4 31.00
11077 77 13.00 2 26.00
(2155 row(s) affected)
Hint
In this computed column, you need to use the
arithmetic operator for multiplication.
14. How many customers?
How many customers do we have in the Customers
table? Show one value only, and don’t rely on getting
the recordcount at the end of a resultset.
Expected Results
TotalCustomers
--------------
91

(1 row(s) affected)
Hint
In order to get the total number of customers, we need
to use what’s called an aggregate function. Look online
for an aggregate function that would work for this
problem.
15. When was the first order?
Show the date of the first order ever made in the
Orders table.
Expected Results
FirstOrder
-----------------------
2014-07-04 08:00:00.000

(1 row(s) affected)
Hint
There’s a aggregate function called Min that you need
to use for this problem.
16. Countries where there are customers
Show a list of countries where the Northwind company
has customers.
Expected Results
Country
---------------
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Mexico
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
USA
Venezuela

(21 row(s) affected)

Hint
You’ll want to use the Group By clause for this query.
17. Contact titles for customers
Show a list of all the different values in the Customers
table for ContactTitles. Also include a count for each
ContactTitle.
This is similar in concept to the previous question
“Countries where there are customers”, except we now
want a count for each ContactTitle.
Expected Results
ContactTitle TotalContactTitle
------------------------------ -----------------
Owner 17
Sales Representative 17
Marketing Manager 12
Sales Manager 11
Accounting Manager 10
Sales Associate 7
Marketing Assistant 6
Sales Agent 5
Assistant Sales Agent 2
Order Administrator 2
Assistant Sales Representative 1
Owner/Marketing Assistant 1

(12 row(s) affected)

Hint
The answer for this problem builds on multiple
concepts introduced in previous problem, such as
grouping, aggregate functions, and aliases.
18. Products with associated supplier names
We’d like to show, for each product, the associated
Supplier. Show the ProductID, ProductName, and the
CompanyName of the Supplier. Sort by ProductID.
This question will introduce what may be a new
concept, the Join clause in SQL. The Join clause is
used to join two or more relational database tables
together in a logical way.
Here’s a data model of the relationship between
Products and Suppliers.
Expected Results
ProductID ProductName Supplier
----------- ---------------------------------------- ------------------------------
1 Chai Exotic Liquids
2 Chang Exotic Liquids
3 Aniseed Syrup Exotic Liquids
4 Chef Anton's Cajun Seasoning New Orleans Cajun Delights
5 Chef Anton's Gumbo Mix New Orleans Cajun Delights
6 Grandma's Boysenberry Spread Grandma Kelly's Homestead
7 Uncle Bob's Organic Dried Pears Grandma Kelly's Homestead
8 Northwoods Cranberry Sauce Grandma Kelly's Homestead
9 Mishi Kobe Niku Tokyo Traders
10 Ikura Tokyo Traders

... (skipping some rows)

66 Louisiana Hot Spiced Okra New Orleans Cajun Delights

67 Laughing Lumberjack Lager Bigfoot Breweries
68 Scottish Longbreads Specialty Biscuits, Ltd.
69 Gudbrandsdalsost Norske Meierier
70 Outback Lager Pavlova, Ltd.
71 Flotemysost Norske Meierier
72 Mozzarella di Giovanni Formaggi Fortini s.r.l.
73 Röd Kaviar Svensk Sjöföda AB
74 Longlife Tofu Tokyo Traders
75 Rhönbräu Klosterbier Plutzer Lebensmittelgroßmärkte
AG
76 Lakkalikööri Karkki Oy
77 Original Frankfurter grüne Soße Plutzer
Lebensmittelgroßmärkte AG

(77 row(s) affected)

Hint
Just as a reference, here’s an example of what the
syntax for the Join looks like, using different tables
from the Northwind database. It will show all the
products, with the associated CategoryName.
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,CategoryName
From Products
Join Categories
on Products.CategoryID = Categories.CategoryID
19. Orders and the Shipper that was used
We’d like to show a list of the Orders that were made,
including the Shipper that was used. Show the
OrderID, OrderDate (date only), and CompanyName of
the Shipper, and sort by OrderID.
In order to not show all the orders (there’s more than
800), show only those rows with an OrderID of less
than 10300.
Expected Results
OrderID OrderDate Shipper
----------- ---------- ----------------------------------------
10248 2014-07-04 Federal Shipping
10249 2014-07-05 Speedy Express
10250 2014-07-08 United Package
10251 2014-07-08 Speedy Express
10252 2014-07-09 United Package
10253 2014-07-10 United Package
10254 2014-07-11 United Package
10255 2014-07-12 Federal Shipping
10256 2014-07-15 United Package
10257 2014-07-16 Federal Shipping
10258 2014-07-17 Speedy Express
10259 2014-07-18 Federal Shipping
10260 2014-07-19 Speedy Express
10261 2014-07-19 United Package
10262 2014-07-22 Federal Shipping
10263 2014-07-23 Federal Shipping
10264 2014-07-24 Federal Shipping

... (skipping some rows)

10284 2014-08-19 Speedy Express

10285 2014-08-20 United Package
10286 2014-08-21 Federal Shipping
10287 2014-08-22 Federal Shipping
10288 2014-08-23 Speedy Express
10289 2014-08-26 Federal Shipping
10290 2014-08-27 Speedy Express
10291 2014-08-27 United Package
10292 2014-08-28 United Package
10293 2014-08-29 Federal Shipping
10294 2014-08-30 United Package
10295 2014-09-02 United Package
10296 2014-09-03 Speedy Express
10297 2014-09-04 United Package
10298 2014-09-05 United Package
10299 2014-09-06 United Package

(52 row(s) affected)

Hint
First, create a SQL statement that shows only the rows
and columns you need from the Orders table.
Then, work on adding the join to the Shipper table,
and the necessary field from that table.
This data model should help you visualize the join
between the Orders table and the Shippers table.
Hint
One thing to note for this problem is that when you
join two tables, the field that’s joined on does not
necessarily need to have the same name. Usually, they
do. However, in this case, the ShipVia field in Orders
is joined to ShipperID in Shippers.

Congratulations! You've completed the introductory

problems
Any questions or feedback on the problems, hints, or
answers? I'd like to hear from you. Please email me at
[email protected].
Intermediate Problems
20. Categories, and the total products in
each category
For this problem, we’d like to see the total number of
products in each category. Sort the results by the total
number of products, in descending order.
Expected Results
CategoryName TotalProducts
--------------- -------------
Confections 13
Beverages 12
Condiments 12
Seafood 12
Dairy Products 10
Grains/Cereals 7
Meat/Poultry 6
Produce 5

(8 row(s) affected)
Hint
To solve this problem, you need to combine a join, and
a group by.
A good way to start is by creating a query that shows
the CategoryName and all ProductIDs associated with
it, without grouping. Then, add the Group by
21. Total customers per country/city
In the Customers table, show the total number of
customers per Country and City.
Expected Results
Country City TotalCustomer
--------------- --------------- -------------
UK London 6
Mexico México D.F. 5
Brazil Sao Paulo 4
Brazil Rio de Janeiro 3
Spain Madrid 3
Argentina Buenos Aires 3
France Paris 2
USA Portland 2
France Nantes 2
Portugal Lisboa 2
Finland Oulu 1
Italy Reggio Emilia 1
France Reims 1
Brazil Resende 1

... (skipping some rows)

Canada Montréal 1
Germany München 1
Germany Münster 1
Germany Aachen 1
USA Albuquerque 1
USA Anchorage 1
Denmark Århus 1
Spain Barcelona 1
Venezuela Barquisimeto 1
Italy Bergamo 1
Germany Berlin 1
Switzerland Bern 1
USA Boise 1
Sweden Bräcke 1
Germany Brandenburg 1
Belgium Bruxelles 1

(69 row(s) affected)

Hint
Just as you can have multiple fields in a Select clause,
you can also have multiple fields in a Group By clause.
22. Products that need reordering
What products do we have in our inventory that should
be reordered? For now, just use the fields UnitsInStock
and ReorderLevel, where UnitsInStock is less than the
ReorderLevel, ignoring the fields UnitsOnOrder and
Discontinued.
Order the results by ProductID.
Expected Results
ProductID ProductName UnitsInStock ReorderLevel
----------- ---------------------------------------- ------------ ------------
2 Chang 17 25
3 Aniseed Syrup 13 25
11 Queso Cabrales 22 30
21 Sir Rodney's Scones 3 5
30 Nord-Ost Matjeshering 10 15
31 Gorgonzola Telino 0 20
32 Mascarpone Fabioli 9 25
37 Gravad lax 11 25
43 Ipoh Coffee 17 25
45 Rogede sild 5 15
48 Chocolade 15 25
49 Maxilaku 10 15
56 Gnocchi di nonna Alice 21 30
64 Wimmers gute Semmelknödel 22 30
66 Louisiana Hot Spiced Okra 4 20
68 Scottish Longbreads 6 15
70 Outback Lager 15 30
74 Longlife Tofu 4 5

(18 row(s) affected)

Hint
We want to show all fields where the UnitsInStock is
less than the ReorderLevel. So in the Where clause,
use the following:
UnitsInStock < ReorderLevel
23. Products that need reordering, continued
Now we need to incorporate these fields—
UnitsInStock, UnitsOnOrder, ReorderLevel,
Discontinued—into our calculation. We’ll define
“products that need reordering” with the following:
UnitsInStock plus UnitsOnOrder are less than
or equal to ReorderLevel
The Discontinued flag is false (0).
Expected Results
ProductID ProductName UnitsInStock UnitsOnOrder ReorderLevel
Discontinued
----------- ----------------------- ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
30 Nord-Ost Matjeshering 10 0 15 0
70 Outback Lager 15 10 30 0

(2 row(s) affected)
Hint
For the first part of the Where clause, you should have
something like this:
UnitsInStock + UnitsOnOrder <= ReorderLevel
24. Customer list by region
A salesperson for Northwind is going on a business
trip to visit customers, and would like to see a list of
all customers, sorted by region, alphabetically.
However, he wants the customers with no region (null
in the Region field) to be at the end, instead of at the
top, where you’d normally find the null values. Within
the same region, companies should be sorted by
CustomerID.
Expected Results
CustomerID CompanyName Region
---------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------
OLDWO Old World Delicatessen AK
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets BC
LAUGB Laughing Bacchus Wine Cellars BC
LETSS Let's Stop N Shop CA
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers Co. Cork
GROSR GROSELLA-Restaurante DF
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets ID
ISLAT Island Trading Isle of Wight
LILAS LILA-Supermercado Lara
THECR The Cracker Box MT
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery NM

... (skipping some rows)

SANTG Santé Gourmet NULL

SEVES Seven Seas Imports NULL
SIMOB Simons bistro NULL
SPECD Spécialités du monde NULL
SUPRD Suprêmes délices NULL
TOMSP Toms Spezialitäten NULL
TORTU Tortuga Restaurante NULL
VAFFE Vaffeljernet NULL
VICTE Victuailles en stock NULL
VINET Vins et alcools Chevalier NULL
WANDK Die Wandernde Kuh NULL
WARTH Wartian Herkku NULL
WILMK Wilman Kala NULL
WOLZA Wolski Zajazd NULL

(91 row(s) affected)

Hint
You won’t be able to sort directly on the Region field
here. You’ll need to sort on the Region field, and also
on a computed field that you create, which will give
you a secondary sort for when Region is null
First, without ordering, create a computed field that
has a value which will sort the way you want. In this
case, you can create a field with the Case statement,
which allows you do to if/then logic. You want a field
that is 1 when Region is null.
Take a look at the Examples section in the SQL Server
documentation for Case
(https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms181765.aspx#examples).
Note that when filtering for null values, you can't use
“FieldName = Null”. You must use “FieldName is
null”.
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,Region
,Case
when Region is null then 1
else 0
End
From Customers

When the Region contains a null, you will have a 1 in

the final column. Now, just add the fields for the Order
By clause, in the right order.
25. High freight charges
Some of the countries we ship to have very high freight
charges. We'd like to investigate some more shipping
options for our customers, to be able to offer them
lower freight charges. Return the three ship countries
with the highest average freight overall, in descending
order by average freight.
Expected Results
ShipCountry AverageFreight
--------------- ---------------------
Austria 184.7875
Ireland 145.0126
USA 112.8794

(3 row(s) affected)
Hint
We'll be using the Orders table, and using the Freight
and ShipCountry fields.
Hint
You'll want to group by ShipCountry, and use the Avg
function. Don't worry about showing only the top 3
rows until you have the grouping and average freight
set up.
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = avg(freight)
From Orders
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc;

Now you just need to show just the top 3 rows.

26. High freight charges - 2015
We're continuing on the question above on high freight
charges. Now, instead of using all the orders we have,
we only want to see orders from the year 2015.
Expected result
ShipCountry AverageFreight
--------------- ---------------------
Austria 178.3642
Switzerland 117.1775
France 113.991

(3 row(s) affected)
Hint
You need to add a Where clause to the query from the
previous problem. The field to filter on is OrderDate.
Hint
When filtering on dates, you need to know whether the
date field is a DateTime, or a Date field. Is OrderDate
a Datetime or a Date field?
27. High freight charges with between
Another (incorrect) answer to the problem above is
this:
Select Top 3
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = avg(freight)
From Orders
Where
OrderDate between '1/1/2015' and '12/31/2015'
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc;

Notice when you run this, it gives Sweden as the

ShipCountry with the third highest freight charges.
However, this is wrong - it should be France.
What is the OrderID of the order that the (incorrect)
answer above is missing?
Expected Result
(no expected results this time - we’re looking for a
specific OrderID)
Hint
The Between statement is inclusive. Why isn’t it
showing the orders made on December 31, 2015?
Hint
Run this query, and look at the rows around December
31, 2015. What do you notice? Look specifically at the
Freight field.
select * from orders order by OrderDate
28. High freight charges - last year
We're continuing to work on high freight charges. We
now want to get the three ship countries with the
highest average freight charges. But instead of filtering
for a particular year, we want to use the last 12 months
of order data, using as the end date the last OrderDate
in Orders.
Expected Results
ShipCountry AverageFreight
--------------- ---------------------
Ireland 200.21
Austria 186.4596
USA 119.3032

(3 row(s) affected)
Hint
First, get the last OrderDate in Orders. Write a simple
select statement to get the highest value in the
OrderDate field using the Max aggregate function.
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select Max(OrderDate) from Orders
Now you need to get the date 1 year before the last
order date. Create a simple select statement that
subtracts 1 year from the last order date
You can use the DateAdd function for this. Note that
within DateAdd, you can use the subquery you created
above. Look online for some examples if you need to.
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select Dateadd(yy, -1, (Select Max(OrderDate) from Orders))
Now you just need to put it in the where clause.
29. Inventory list
We're doing inventory, and need to show information
like the below, for all orders. Sort by OrderID and
Product ID.
Expected Results
EmployeeID LastName OrderID ProductName
Quantity
----------- -------------------- ----------- ---------------------------------------- --
------
5 Buchanan 10248 Queso Cabrales 12
5 Buchanan 10248 Singaporean Hokkien Fried Mee
10
5 Buchanan 10248 Mozzarella di Giovanni 5
6 Suyama 10249 Tofu 9
6 Suyama 10249 Manjimup Dried Apples 40
4 Peacock 10250 Jack's New England Clam
Chowder 10
4 Peacock 10250 Manjimup Dried Apples 35
4 Peacock 10250 Louisiana Fiery Hot Pepper Sauce
15
3 Leverling 10251 Gustaf's Knäckebröd 6
3 Leverling 10251 Ravioli Angelo 15
3 Leverling 10251 Louisiana Fiery Hot Pepper Sauce
20
4 Peacock 10252 Sir Rodney's Marmalade 40
4 Peacock 10252 Geitost 25
4 Peacock 10252 Camembert Pierrot 40
3 Leverling 10253 Gorgonzola Telino 20
3 Leverling 10253 Chartreuse verte 42
3 Leverling 10253 Maxilaku 40
…
(total 2155 rows)
Hint
You'll need to do a join between 4 tables, displaying
only those fields that are necessary.
30. Customers with no orders
There are some customers who have never actually
placed an order. Show these customers.
Expected Results
Customers_CustomerID Orders_CustomerID
-------------------- -----------------
FISSA NULL
PARIS NULL

(2 row(s) affected)
Hint
One way of doing this is to use a left join, also known
as a left outer join.
Hint
Select
Customers_CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
,Orders_CustomerID = Orders.CustomerID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID

This is a good start. It shows all records from the

Customers table, and the matching records from the
Orders table. However, we only want those records
where the CustomerID in Orders is null. You still need
a filter
31. Customers with no orders for
EmployeeID 4
One employee (Margaret Peacock, EmployeeID 4) has
placed the most orders. However, there are some
customers who've never placed an order with her. Show
only those customers who have never placed an order
with her.
Expected Result
CustomerID CustomerID
---------- ----------
SEVES NULL
THEBI NULL
LAZYK NULL
GROSR NULL
PARIS NULL
FISSA NULL
SPECD NULL
LAUGB NULL
PRINI NULL
VINET NULL
FRANR NULL
CONSH NULL
NORTS NULL
PERIC NULL
DUMON NULL
SANTG NULL

(16 row(s) affected)

Hint
Building on the previous problem, you might think
you need to do something like this:

Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Orders.CustomerID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Where
Orders.CustomerID is null
and Orders.EmployeeID = 4

…adding this filter in the where clause:

and Orders.EmployeeID = 4
However, this returns no records.
Note that with outer joins, the filters on the where
clause are applied after the join.

Congratulations! You've completed the intermediate

problems
Any questions or feedback on the problems, hints, or
answers? I'd like to hear from you. Please email me at
[email protected].
Advanced Problems
32. High-value customers
We want to send all of our high-value customers a
special VIP gift. We're defining high-value customers
as those who've made at least 1 order with a total value
(not including the discount) equal to $10,000 or more.
We only want to consider orders made in the year
2016.
Expected Result
CustomerID CompanyName OrderID
TotalOrderAmount
---------- ---------------------------------------- ----------- ---------------------
QUICK QUICK-Stop 10865 17250.00
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets 11030 16321.90
HANAR Hanari Carnes 10981 15810.00
KOENE Königlich Essen 10817 11490.70
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery 10889 11380.00
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers 10897 10835.24

(6 row(s) affected)
Hint
First, let's get the necessary fields for all orders made
in the year 2016. Don't bother grouping yet, just work
on the Where clause. You'll need the CustomerID,
CompanyName from Customers; OrderID from Orders;
and Quantity and unit price from OrderDetails. Order
by the total amount of the order, in descending order.
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,Orders.OrderID
,Amount = Quantity * UnitPrice
From Customers
join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '20160101'
and OrderDate < '20170101'

This gives you the total amount for each Order Detail
item in 2016 orders, at the Order Detail level. Now,
which fields do you need to group on, and which need
to be summed?
Hint
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,Orders.OrderID
,TotalOrderAmount = sum(Quantity * UnitPrice)
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '20160101'
and OrderDate < '20170101'
Group By
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,Orders.OrderID

The fields at the Customer and Order level need to be

grouped by, and the TotalOrderAmount needs to be
summed.
How would you filter on the sum, in order to get
orders of $10,000 or more? Can you put it straight into
the where clause?
33. High-value customers - total orders
The manager has changed his mind. Instead of
requiring that customers have at least one individual
orders totaling $10,000 or more, he wants to define
high-value customers as those who have orders totaling
$15,000 or more in 2016. How would you change the
answer to the problem above?
Expected Result
CustomerID CompanyName TotalOrderAmount
---------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets 42806.25
ERNSH Ernst Handel 42598.90
QUICK QUICK-Stop 40526.99
HANAR Hanari Carnes 24238.05
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers 22796.34
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery 21725.60
KOENE Königlich Essen 20204.95
FOLKO Folk och fä HB 15973.85
WHITC White Clover Markets 15278.90

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
This query is almost identical to the one above, but
there's just a few lines you need to delete or comment
out, to group at a different level.
34. High-value customers - with discount
Change the above query to use the discount when
calculating high-value customers. Order by the total
amount which includes the discount.
Expected Result
CustomerID CompanyName TotalsWithoutDiscount
TotalsWithDiscount
---------- ------------------------------ --------------------- ----------------------
ERNSH Ernst Handel 42598.90 41210.6500244141
QUICK QUICK-Stop 40526.99 37217.3150024414
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets 42806.25 36310.1097793579
HANAR Hanari Carnes 24238.05 23821.1999893188
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery 21725.60
21238.2704410553
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers 22796.34
20402.119934082
KOENE Königlich Essen 20204.95 19582.7739868164
WHITC White Clover Markets 15278.90
15278.8999862671
FOLKO Folk och fä HB 15973.85 13644.0674972534
SUPRD Suprêmes délices 11862.50 11644.5999984741
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets 12227.40
11338.5500488281

(11 row(s) affected)

Hint
To start out, just use the OrderDetails table. You'll
need to figure out how the Discount field is structured.
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select
OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,Discount
,TotalWithDisccount = UnitPrice * Quantity * (1- Discount)
from OrderDetails

Note that Discount is applied as a percentage. So, if

there's a 0.15 in the discount field, you need to
multiply the UnitPrice * Quantity by .85 (1.00 - .15).
You need parenthesis around (1 - Discount) to make
sure that calculation is done first.
35. Month-end orders
At the end of the month, salespeople are likely to try
much harder to get orders, to meet their month-end
quotas. Show all orders made on the last day of the
month. Order by EmployeeID and OrderID
Expected Result
EmployeeID OrderID OrderDate
----------- ----------- -----------------------
1 10461 2015-02-28 00:00:00.000
1 10616 2015-07-31 00:00:00.000
2 10583 2015-06-30 00:00:00.000
2 10686 2015-09-30 00:00:00.000
2 10989 2016-03-31 00:00:00.000
2 11060 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
3 10432 2015-01-31 00:00:00.000
3 10806 2015-12-31 00:00:00.000
3 10988 2016-03-31 00:00:00.000
3 11063 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
4 10343 2014-10-31 00:00:00.000
4 10522 2015-04-30 00:00:00.000
4 10584 2015-06-30 00:00:00.000
4 10617 2015-07-31 00:00:00.000
4 10725 2015-10-31 00:00:00.000
4 10807 2015-12-31 00:00:00.000
4 11061 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
4 11062 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
5 10269 2014-07-31 00:00:00.000
6 10317 2014-09-30 00:00:00.000
7 10490 2015-03-31 00:00:00.000
8 10399 2014-12-31 00:00:00.000
8 10460 2015-02-28 00:00:00.000
8 10491 2015-03-31 00:00:00.000
8 10987 2016-03-31 00:00:00.000
9 10687 2015-09-30 00:00:00.000

(26 row(s) affected)

Hint
You can work on calculating this yourself, with a
combination of date functions such as DateAdd and
DateDiff. But feel free to shortcut the process by doing
some research online.
36. Orders with many line items
The Northwind mobile app developers are testing an
app that customers will use to show orders. In order to
make sure that even the largest orders will show up
correctly on the app, they'd like some samples of
orders that have lots of individual line items. Show the
10 orders with the most line items, in order of total
line items.
Expected Result
OrderID TotalOrderDetails
----------- -----------------
11077 25
10979 6
10657 6
10847 6
10845 5
10836 5
10714 5
10670 5
10691 5
10698 5

(10 row(s) affected)

Hint
Using Orders and OrderDetails, you'll use Group by
and count() functionality.
37. Orders - random assortment
The Northwind mobile app developers would now like
to just get a random assortment of orders for beta
testing on their app. Show a random set of 2% of all
orders.
Expected Result
(note - your results will be different, because we’re
returning a random set)
OrderID
-----------
11034
10400
10948
10931
10942
10604
10350
10499
10927
10896
10774
10932
10592
10706
10479
10782
10898

(17 row(s) affected)

Hint
Note that in the below SQL, the RandomValue field
returns the same random value for each row. Do some
research online to figure out how to get a new random
value for each row.
Select
OrderID
, RandomValue = Rand()
From Orders
38. Orders - accidental double-entry
Janet Leverling, one of the salespeople, has come to
you with a request. She thinks that she accidentally
double-entered a line item on an order, with a different
ProductID, but the same quantity. She remembers that
the quantity was 60 or more. Show all the OrderIDs
with line items that match this, in order of OrderID.
Expected Result
OrderID
-----------
10263
10263
10990
10658
11030

(5 row(s) affected)
Hint
You might start out with something like this:
Select
OrderID
,ProductID
,Quantity
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60

However, this will only give us the orders where at

least one order detail has a quantity of 60 or more. We
need to show orders with more than one order detail
with a quantity of 60 or more. Also, the same value for
quantity needs to be there more than once.
Hint
In addition to grouping on the OrderID, we also need
to group by the Quantity, since we need to show the
order details that have the same quantity, within an
order. So, we need to group by both OrderID, and
Quantity.
39. Orders - accidental double-entry details
Based on the previous question, we now want to show
details of the order, for orders that match the above
criteria.
Expected Result
OrderID ProductID UnitPrice Quantity Discount
----------- ----------- --------------------- -------- -------------
10263 16 13.90 60 0.25
10263 30 20.70 60 0.25
10263 24 3.60 65 0
10263 74 8.00 65 0.25
10658 60 34.00 55 0.05
10658 21 10.00 60 0
10658 40 18.40 70 0.05
10658 77 13.00 70 0.05
10990 34 14.00 60 0.15
10990 21 10.00 65 0
10990 55 24.00 65 0.15
10990 61 28.50 66 0.15
11030 29 123.79 60 0.25
11030 5 21.35 70 0
11030 2 19.00 100 0.25
11030 59 55.00 100 0.25

(16 row(s) affected)

Hint
There are many ways of doing this, including CTE
(common table expression) and derived tables. I
suggest using a CTE and a subquery. Here's a good
article on CTEs (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms175972.aspx).
This is an example of a simple CTE in Northwind. It
returns orders made by the oldest employee:
;with OldestEmployee as (
Select top 1
EmployeeID
from Employees
order by BirthDate
)
Select
OrderID
,OrderDate
from Orders
where
EmployeeID in (Select EmployeeID from OldestEmployee)
40. Orders - accidental double-entry details,
derived table
Here's another way of getting the same results as in the
previous problem, using a derived table instead of a
CTE. However, there's a bug in this SQL. It returns 20
rows instead of 16. Correct the SQL.
Problem SQL:
Select
OrderDetails.OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,Discount
From OrderDetails
Join (
Select
OrderID
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60
Group By OrderID, Quantity
Having Count(*) > 1
) PotentialProblemOrders
on PotentialProblemOrders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Order by OrderID, ProductID
Hint
Your first step should be to run the SQL in the derived
table
Select
OrderID
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60
Group By OrderID, Quantity
Having Count(*) > 1

What do you notice about the results?

Hint
There are 2 rows for OrderID 10263, because there are
2 sets of rows that have the same, identical quantity,
that's 60 or above.
When you do a join to a table that has duplicates, you
will get duplicates in the output as well, unless you
take steps to avoid it.
Find a single keyword that you can easily add to avoid
duplicates in SQL.
41. Late orders
Some customers are complaining about their orders
arriving late. Which orders are late?
Expected Result
OrderID OrderDate RequiredDate ShippedDate
----------- ---------- ------------ -----------
10264 2014-07-24 2014-08-21 2014-08-23
10271 2014-08-01 2014-08-29 2014-08-30
10280 2014-08-14 2014-09-11 2014-09-12
10302 2014-09-10 2014-10-08 2014-10-09
10309 2014-09-19 2014-10-17 2014-10-23
10380 2014-12-12 2015-01-09 2015-01-16
10423 2015-01-23 2015-02-06 2015-02-24
10427 2015-01-27 2015-02-24 2015-03-03
10433 2015-02-03 2015-03-03 2015-03-04
10451 2015-02-19 2015-03-05 2015-03-12
10483 2015-03-24 2015-04-21 2015-04-25
10515 2015-04-23 2015-05-07 2015-05-23
10523 2015-05-01 2015-05-29 2015-05-30
10545 2015-05-22 2015-06-19 2015-06-26
10578 2015-06-24 2015-07-22 2015-07-25
10593 2015-07-09 2015-08-06 2015-08-13
10596 2015-07-11 2015-08-08 2015-08-12
10663 2015-09-10 2015-09-24 2015-10-03
10687 2015-09-30 2015-10-28 2015-10-30
10660 2015-09-08 2015-10-06 2015-10-15
10705 2015-10-15 2015-11-12 2015-11-18
10709 2015-10-17 2015-11-14 2015-11-20
10726 2015-11-03 2015-11-17 2015-12-05
10727 2015-11-03 2015-12-01 2015-12-05
10749 2015-11-20 2015-12-18 2015-12-19
10777 2015-12-15 2015-12-29 2016-01-21
10779 2015-12-16 2016-01-13 2016-01-14
10788 2015-12-22 2016-01-19 2016-01-19
10807 2015-12-31 2016-01-28 2016-01-30
10816 2016-01-06 2016-02-03 2016-02-04
10827 2016-01-12 2016-01-26 2016-02-06
10828 2016-01-13 2016-01-27 2016-02-04
10847 2016-01-22 2016-02-05 2016-02-10
10924 2016-03-04 2016-04-01 2016-04-08
10927 2016-03-05 2016-04-02 2016-04-08
10960 2016-03-19 2016-04-02 2016-04-08
10970 2016-03-24 2016-04-07 2016-04-24
10978 2016-03-26 2016-04-23 2016-04-23
10998 2016-04-03 2016-04-17 2016-04-17

(39 row(s) affected)

Hint
To determine which orders are late, you can use a
combination of the RequiredDate and ShippedDate.
It's not exact, but if ShippedDate is actually AFTER
RequiredDate, you can be sure it's late.
42. Late orders - which employees?
Some salespeople have more orders arriving late than
others. Maybe they're not following up on the order
process, and need more training. Which salespeople
have the most orders arriving late?
Expected Result
EmployeeID LastName TotalLateOrders
----------- -------------------- ---------------
4 Peacock 10
3 Leverling 5
8 Callahan 5
9 Dodsworth 5
7 King 4
2 Fuller 4
1 Davolio 3
6 Suyama 3

(8 row(s) affected)
Hint
The answer from the problem above is a good starting
point. You'll need to join to the Employee table to get
the last name, and also add Count to show the total
late orders.
43. Late orders vs. total orders
Andrew, the VP of sales, has been doing some more
thinking some more about the problem of late orders.
He realizes that just looking at the number of orders
arriving late for each salesperson isn't a good idea. It
needs to be compared against the total number of
orders per salesperson. Return results like the
following:
Expected Result
EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders
----------- -------------------- ----------- -----------
1 Davolio 123 3
2 Fuller 96 4
3 Leverling 127 5
4 Peacock 156 10
6 Suyama 67 3
7 King 72 4
8 Callahan 104 5
9 Dodsworth 43 5

(8 row(s) affected)
Hint
You can use more than one CTE in a query. That
would be a straightforward way of solving this
problem.
Hint
Here are 2 SQL statements that could be put into CTEs
and put together into a final SQL statement.
-- Late orders
Select
EmployeeID
,TotalOrders = Count(*)
From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate
Group By
EmployeeID

-- Total orders
Select
EmployeeID
,TotalOrders = Count(*)
From Orders
Group By
EmployeeID
44. Late orders vs. total orders - missing
employee
There's an employee missing in the answer from the
problem above. Fix the SQL to show all employees
who have taken orders.
Expected Result
EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders
----------- -------------------- ----------- -----------
1 Davolio 123 3
2 Fuller 96 4
3 Leverling 127 5
4 Peacock 156 10
5 Buchanan 42 NULL
6 Suyama 67 3
7 King 72 4
8 Callahan 104 5
9 Dodsworth 43 5

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
How many rows are returned when you run just the
AllOrders CTE? How about when you run just the
LateOrders CTE?
Hint
You'll want to add a left join (also known as a left
outer join), to make sure that we show a row, even if
there are no late orders.
45. Late orders vs. total orders - fix null
Continuing on the answer for above query, let's fix the
results for row 5 - Buchanan. He should have a 0
instead of a Null in LateOrders.
Expected Result
EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders
----------- -------------------- ----------- -----------
1 Davolio 123 3
2 Fuller 96 4
3 Leverling 127 5
4 Peacock 156 10
5 Buchanan 42 0
6 Suyama 67 3
7 King 72 4
8 Callahan 104 5
9 Dodsworth 43 5

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
Find a function to test if a value is null, and return a
different value when it is.
46. Late orders vs. total orders - percentage
Now we want to get the percentage of late orders over
total orders.
Expected Result
EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders PercentLateOrders
----------- -------------------- ----------- ----------- -------------------
1 Davolio 123 3 0.0243902439024
2 Fuller 96 4 0.0416666666666
3 Leverling 127 5 0.0393700787401
4 Peacock 156 10 0.0641025641025
5 Buchanan 42 0 0.0000000000000
6 Suyama 67 3 0.0447761194029
7 King 72 4 0.0555555555555
8 Callahan 104 5 0.0480769230769
9 Dodsworth 43 5 0.1162790697674

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
By dividing late orders by total orders, you should be
able to get the percentage of orders that are late.
However, there's a common problem people run into,
which is that an integer divided by an integer returns
an integer. For instance, if you run the following SQL
to divide 3 by 2:
select 3/2
You’ll get 1 instead of 1.5, because it will return the
closest integer.
Do some research online to find the answer to this
issue.
47. Late orders vs. total orders - fix decimal
So now for the PercentageLateOrders, we get a
decimal value like we should. But to make the output
easier to read, let's cut the PercentLateOrders off at 2
digits to the right of the decimal point.
Expected Result
EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders PercentLateOrders
----------- -------------------- ----------- ----------- -------------------
1 Davolio 123 3 0.02
2 Fuller 96 4 0.04
3 Leverling 127 5 0.04
4 Peacock 156 10 0.06
5 Buchanan 42 0 0.00
6 Suyama 67 3 0.04
7 King 72 4 0.06
8 Callahan 104 5 0.05
9 Dodsworth 43 5 0.12

(9 row(s) affected)
Hint
One straightforward way of doing this would be to
explicitly convert PercentageLateOrders to a specific
Decimal data type. With the Decimal datatype, you can
specify how many digits you want to the right of the
decimal point
Hint
The calculation PercentLateOrders is getting a little
long and complicated, and it can be tricky to get all the
commas and parenthesis correct.
One way to simplify it is to break it down with an
actual value instead of a calculation.
For instance:
Select convert(decimal(10,2), 0.0243902439024)
48. Customer grouping
Andrew Fuller, the VP of sales at Northwind, would
like to do a sales campaign for existing customers.
He'd like to categorize customers into groups, based on
how much they ordered in 2016. Then, depending on
which group the customer is in, he will target the
customer with different sales materials.
The customer grouping categories are 0 to 1,000, 1,000
to 5,000, 5,000 to 10,000, and over 10,000.
A good starting point for this query is the answer from
the problem “High-value customers - total orders. We
don’t want to show customers who don’t have any
orders in 2016.
Order the results by CustomerID.
Expected Result
CustomerID CompanyName TotalOrderAmount
CustomerGroup
---------- ---------------------------------------- --------------------- -------------
ALFKI Alfreds Futterkiste 2302.20 Medium
ANATR Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados 514.40 Low
ANTON Antonio Moreno Taquería 660.00 Low
AROUT Around the Horn 5838.50 High
BERGS Berglunds snabbköp 8110.55 High
BLAUS Blauer See Delikatessen 2160.00 Medium
BLONP Blondesddsl père et fils 730.00 Low
BOLID Bólido Comidas preparadas 280.00 Low
BONAP Bon app' 7185.90 High
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets 12227.40 Very High
BSBEV B's Beverages 2431.00 Medium
CACTU Cactus Comidas para llevar 1576.80 Medium
CHOPS Chop-suey Chinese 4429.40 Medium

... (skipping some rows)

SPLIR Split Rail Beer & Ale 1117.00 Medium

SUPRD Suprêmes délices 11862.50 Very High
THEBI The Big Cheese 69.60 Low
THECR The Cracker Box 326.00 Low
TOMSP Toms Spezialitäten 910.40 Low
TORTU Tortuga Restaurante 1874.50 Medium
TRADH Tradição Hipermercados 4401.62 Medium
TRAIH Trail's Head Gourmet Provisioners 237.90 Low
VAFFE Vaffeljernet 4333.50 Medium
VICTE Victuailles en stock 3022.00 Medium
WANDK Die Wandernde Kuh 1564.00 Medium
WARTH Wartian Herkku 300.00 Low
WELLI Wellington Importadora 1245.00 Medium
WHITC White Clover Markets 15278.90 Very High
WILMK Wilman Kala 1987.00 Medium
WOLZA Wolski Zajazd 1865.10 Medium

(81 row(s) affected)

Hint
This is the SQL from the problem “High-value
customers - total orders”, but without the filter for
order totals over 10,000.
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,TotalOrderAmount = SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice)
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '20160101'
and OrderDate < '20170101'
Group By
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
Order By TotalOrderAmount Desc;
Hint
You can use the above SQL in a CTE (common table
expression), and then build on it, using a Case
statement on the TotalOrderAmount.
49. Customer grouping - fix null
There's a bug with the answer for the previous
question. The CustomerGroup value for one of the
rows is null.
Fix the SQL so that there are no nulls in the
CustomerGroup field.
Expected Result
(Including only a subset of the output)

CustomerID CompanyName TotalOrderAmount

CustomerGroup
---------- ------------------------------- --------------------- -------------
LILAS LILA-Supermercado 5994.06 High
LINOD LINO-Delicateses 10085.60 Very High
LONEP Lonesome Pine Restaurant 1709.40 Medium
MAGAA Magazzini Alimentari Riuniti 1693.00 Medium
MAISD Maison Dewey 5000.20 High
MORGK Morgenstern Gesundkost 245.00 Low
NORTS North/South 45.00 Low
OCEAN Océano Atlántico Ltda. 3031.00 Medium
OLDWO Old World Delicatessen 5337.65 High
OTTIK Ottilies Käseladen 3012.70 Medium
PERIC Pericles Comidas clásicas 1496.00 Medium
PICCO Piccolo und mehr 4393.75 Medium
PRINI Princesa Isabel Vinhos 2633.90 Medium
QUEDE Que Delícia 1353.60 Medium
QUEEN Queen Cozinha 7007.65 High
QUICK QUICK-Stop 40526.99 Very High
RANCH Rancho grande 1694.70 Medium
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery 21725.60 Very High
REGGC Reggiani Caseifici 4263.00 Medium
RICAR Ricardo Adocicados 7312.00 High
Hint
What is the total order amount for CustomerID
MAISD? How does that relate to our CustomerGroup
boundaries?
Hint
Using “between” works well for integer values.
However, the value we're working with is Money,
which has decimals. Instead of something like:
when TotalOrderAmount between 0 and 1000 then 'Low'

You'll need to something like this:

when TotalOrderAmount >= 0 and TotalOrderAmount < 1000 then 'Low'
50. Customer grouping with percentage
Based on the above query, show all the defined
CustomerGroups, and the percentage in each. Sort by
the total in each group, in descending order.
Expected Result
CustomerGroup TotalInGroup PercentageInGroup
------------- ------------ ---------------------------------------
Medium 35 0.432098765432
Low 20 0.246913580246
High 13 0.160493827160
Very High 13 0.160493827160

(4 row(s) affected)
Hint
As a starting point, you can use the answer from the
problem “Customer grouping - fix null”.
Hint
We no longer need to show the CustomerID and
CompanyName in the final output. However, we need
to count how many customers are in each
CustomerGrouping. You can create another CTE level
in order to get the counts in each CustomerGrouping
for the final output.
51. Customer grouping - flexible
Andrew, the VP of Sales is still thinking about how
best to group customers, and define low, medium,
high, and very high value customers. He now wants
complete flexibility in grouping the customers, based
on the dollar amount they've ordered. He doesn’t want
to have to edit SQL in order to change the boundaries
of the customer groups.
How would you write the SQL?
There's a table called CustomerGroupThreshold that
you will need to use. Use only orders from 2016.
Expected Result
(The expected results are the same as for the original
problem, it’s just that we’re getting the answer
differently.)
CustomerID CompanyName TotalOrderAmount
CustomerGroupName
---------- ---------------------------------------- --------------------- --------------
------
ALFKI Alfreds Futterkiste 2302.20 Medium
ANATR Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados 514.40 Low
ANTON Antonio Moreno Taquería 660.00 Low
AROUT Around the Horn 5838.50 High
BERGS Berglunds snabbköp 8110.55 High
BLAUS Blauer See Delikatessen 2160.00 Medium
BLONP Blondesddsl père et fils 730.00 Low
BOLID Bólido Comidas preparadas 280.00 Low
BONAP Bon app' 7185.90 High
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets 12227.40 Very High
BSBEV B's Beverages 2431.00 Medium
CACTU Cactus Comidas para llevar 1576.80 Medium
CHOPS Chop-suey Chinese 4429.40 Medium
COMMI Comércio Mineiro 513.75 Low

... (skipping some rows)

SPLIR Split Rail Beer & Ale 1117.00 Medium

SUPRD Suprêmes délices 11862.50 Very High
THEBI The Big Cheese 69.60 Low
THECR The Cracker Box 326.00 Low
TOMSP Toms Spezialitäten 910.40 Low
TORTU Tortuga Restaurante 1874.50 Medium
TRADH Tradição Hipermercados 4401.62 Medium
TRAIH Trail's Head Gourmet Provisioners 237.90 Low
VAFFE Vaffeljernet 4333.50 Medium
VICTE Victuailles en stock 3022.00 Medium
WANDK Die Wandernde Kuh 1564.00 Medium
WARTH Wartian Herkku 300.00 Low
WELLI Wellington Importadora 1245.00 Medium
WHITC White Clover Markets 15278.90 Very High
WILMK Wilman Kala 1987.00 Medium
WOLZA Wolski Zajazd 1865.10 Medium

(81 row(s) affected)

Hint
As a starting point, use the SQL of the first CTE from
the problem “Customer grouping with percentage”
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,TotalOrderAmount = SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice)
From Customers
join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '20160101'
and OrderDate < '20170101'
Group By
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
Hint
When thinking about how to use the table
CustomerGroupThreshold, note that when joining to a
table, you don't need to only use an equi-join (i.e., “=“
in the join). You can also use other operators, such as
between, and greater than/less than (> and <).
52. Countries with suppliers or customers
Some Northwind employees are planning a business
trip, and would like to visit as many suppliers and
customers as possible. For their planning, they’d like
to see a list of all countries where suppliers and/or
customers are based.
Expected Results
Country
---------------
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
USA
Venezuela

(25 row(s) affected)

Hint
Use the Union statekent for this. It’s a good way of
putting together a simple resultset from multiple SQL
statements.
53. Countries with suppliers or customers,
version 2
The employees going on the business trip don’t want
just a raw list of countries, they want more details.
We’d like to see output like the below, in the Expected
Results.
Expected Result
SupplierCountry CustomerCountry
--------------- ---------------
NULL Argentina
Australia NULL
NULL Austria
NULL Belgium
Brazil Brazil
Canada Canada
Denmark Denmark
Finland Finland
France France
Germany Germany
NULL Ireland
Italy Italy
Japan NULL
NULL Mexico
Netherlands NULL
Norway Norway
NULL Poland
NULL Portugal
Singapore NULL
Spain Spain
Sweden Sweden
NULL Switzerland
UK UK
USA USA
NULL Venezuela

(25 row(s) affected)

Hint
A good way to start would be with a list of countries
from the Suppliers table, and a list of countries from
the Customers table. Use either Distinct or Group by
to avoid duplicating countries. Sort by country name
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select Distinct Country from Customers
Select Distinct Country from Suppliers

You can combine these with a CTEs or derived tables.

Note that there’s a specific type of outer join you’ll
need, designed to return rows from either resultset.
What is it? Look online for the different types of outer
join available.
54. Countries with suppliers or customers -
version 3
The output of the above is improved, but it’s still not
ideal
What we’d really like to see is the country name, the
total suppliers, and the total customers.
Expected Result
Country TotalSuppliers TotalCustomers
--------------- -------------- --------------
Argentina 0 3
Australia 2 0
Austria 0 2
Belgium 0 2
Brazil 1 9
Canada 2 3
Denmark 1 2
Finland 1 2
France 3 11
Germany 3 11
Ireland 0 1
Italy 2 3
Japan 2 0
Mexico 0 5
Netherlands 1 0
Norway 1 1
Poland 0 1
Portugal 0 2
Singapore 1 0
Spain 1 5
Sweden 2 2
Switzerland 0 2
UK 2 7
USA 4 13
Venezuela 0 4

(25 row(s) affected)

Hint
You should be able to use the above query, and make a
few changes to the CTE source queries to show the
total number of Supplier countries and Customer
countries. You won’t be able to use the Distinct
keyword anymore.
Hint
When joining the 2 CTEs together, you can use a
computed column, with the IsNull function to show a
non-null Country field, instead of the Supplier country
or the Customer country.
55. First order in each country
Looking at the Orders table—we’d like to show details
for each order that was the first in that particular
country, ordered by OrderID.
So, we need one row per ShipCountry, and
CustomerID, OrderID, and OrderDate should be of the
first order from that country.
Expected Results
ShipCountry CustomerID OrderID OrderDate
--------------- ---------- ----------- ----------
Argentina OCEAN 10409 2015-01-09
Austria ERNSH 10258 2014-07-17
Belgium SUPRD 10252 2014-07-09
Brazil HANAR 10250 2014-07-08
Canada MEREP 10332 2014-10-17
Denmark SIMOB 10341 2014-10-29
Finland WARTH 10266 2014-07-26
France VINET 10248 2014-07-04
Germany TOMSP 10249 2014-07-05
Ireland HUNGO 10298 2014-09-05
Italy MAGAA 10275 2014-08-07
Mexico CENTC 10259 2014-07-18
Norway SANTG 10387 2014-12-18
Poland WOLZA 10374 2014-12-05
Portugal FURIB 10328 2014-10-14
Spain ROMEY 10281 2014-08-14
Sweden FOLKO 10264 2014-07-24
Switzerland CHOPS 10254 2014-07-11
UK BSBEV 10289 2014-08-26
USA RATTC 10262 2014-07-22
Venezuela HILAA 10257 2014-07-16

(21 row(s) affected)

Hint
Your first step will probably be to create a query like
this:
Select
ShipCountry
,CustomerID
,OrderID
,OrderDate = convert(date, OrderDate)
From orders
Order by
ShipCountry
,OrderID

…which shows all the rows in the Order table, sorted

first by Country and then by OrderID.
Hint
Your next step is to create a computed column that
shows the row number for each order, partitioned
appropriately.
There’s a class of functions called Window functions
or Ranking functions that you can use for this
problem. Specifically, use the Row_Number()
function, with the Over and Partition clause, to get the
number, per country, of a particular order.
Hint
You’ll have something like this:
Select
ShipCountry
,CustomerID
,OrderID
,OrderDate = convert(date, OrderDate)
,RowNumberPerCountry =
Row_Number()
over (Partition by ShipCountry Order by ShipCountry, OrderID)
From Orders

Because of some limitations with Window functions,

you can’t directly filter the computed column created
above. Use a CTE to solve the problem.
56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day
period
There are some customers for whom freight is a major
expense when ordering from Northwind.
However, by batching up their orders, and making one
larger order instead of multiple smaller orders in a
short period of time, they could reduce their freight
costs significantly.
Show those customers who have made more than 1
order in a 5 day period. The sales people will use this
to help customers reduce their costs.
Note: There are more than one way of solving this kind
of problem. For this problem, we will not be using
Window functions.
Expected Result
CustomerID InitialOrderID InitialOrderDate NextOrderID NextOrderDate
DaysBetween
---------- -------------- ---------------- ----------- ------------- -----------
ANTON 10677 2015-09-22 10682 2015-09-25 3
AROUT 10741 2015-11-14 10743 2015-11-17 3
BERGS 10278 2014-08-12 10280 2014-08-14 2
BERGS 10444 2015-02-12 10445 2015-02-13 1
BERGS 10866 2016-02-03 10875 2016-02-06 3
BONAP 10730 2015-11-05 10732 2015-11-06 1
BONAP 10871 2016-02-05 10876 2016-02-09 4
BONAP 10932 2016-03-06 10940 2016-03-11 5
BOTTM 10410 2015-01-10 10411 2015-01-10 0
BOTTM 10944 2016-03-12 10949 2016-03-13 1
BOTTM 10975 2016-03-25 10982 2016-03-27 2
BOTTM 11045 2016-04-23 11048 2016-04-24 1
BSBEV 10538 2015-05-15 10539 2015-05-16 1
BSBEV 10943 2016-03-11 10947 2016-03-13 2

... (skipping some rows)

SEVES 10800 2015-12-26 10804 2015-12-30 4

SUPRD 10841 2016-01-20 10846 2016-01-22 2
SUPRD 11035 2016-04-20 11038 2016-04-21 1
TRADH 10830 2016-01-13 10834 2016-01-15 2
TRADH 10834 2016-01-15 10839 2016-01-19 4
TRAIH 10574 2015-06-19 10577 2015-06-23 4
VICTE 10806 2015-12-31 10814 2016-01-05 5
VICTE 10843 2016-01-21 10850 2016-01-23 2
VINET 10737 2015-11-11 10739 2015-11-12 1
WARTH 10412 2015-01-13 10416 2015-01-16 3
WELLI 10803 2015-12-30 10809 2016-01-01 2
WELLI 10900 2016-02-20 10905 2016-02-24 4
WHITC 10693 2015-10-06 10696 2015-10-08 2
WILMK 10873 2016-02-06 10879 2016-02-10 4
(71 row(s) affected)
Hint
You can use a self-join, with 2 instances of the Orders
table, joined by CustomerID. Good naming for the
table aliases (table instances) are important for
readability. Don't name them Order1 and Order2.
Hint
Select
InitialOrder.CustomerID
,InitialOrderID = InitialOrder.OrderID
,InitialOrderDate = InitialOrder.OrderDate
,NextOrderID = NextOrder.OrderID
,NextOrderDate = NextOrder.OrderDate
from Orders InitialOrder
join Orders NextOrder
on InitialOrder.CustomerID = NextOrder.CustomerID
Order by
InitialOrder.CustomerID
,InitialOrder.OrderID

This is a good start. You will need to filter on

additional fields in the join clause between
InitialOrder and NextOrder, because as it is, this
returns far too many orders. It has what's called a
cartesian product between the 2 instances of the
Orders table. This means that for the total number of
orders for a particular customer in Orders, you'll have
that number, squared, in the output.
Look at some of the OrderID and OrderDate values in
InitialOrder and NextOrder. Some of them definitely
disqualify a row based on our criteria.
Hint
Should the OrderID of the NextOrder ever be less than
or equal to the OrderID of the NextOrder?
Hint
Based on the hint above, we added a where clause.
Select
InitialOrder.CustomerID
,InitialOrderID = InitialOrder.OrderID
,InitialOrderDate = InitialOrder.OrderDate
,NextOrderID = NextOrder.OrderID
,NextOrderDate = NextOrder.OrderDate
from Orders InitialOrder
join Orders NextOrder
on InitialOrder.CustomerID = NextOrder.CustomerID
where
InitialOrder.OrderID < NextOrder.OrderID
Order by
InitialOrder.CustomerID
,InitialOrder.OrderID

Adding this filter:

and InitialOrder.OrderID < NextOrder.OrderID
…has cut down the output a lot. However, we still
need to filter for the 5 day period.
Create a new field called DaysBetween that calculates
the number of days between the InitialOrder OrderDate
and the NextOrder OrderDate. Use the DateDiff
function.
Hint
You should now have a line like this:
DaysBetween = datediff(dd, InitialOrder.OrderDate,
NextOrder.OrderDate)
Use this calculation in the Where clause to filter for 5
days or less between orders.
57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day
period, version 2
There’s another way of solving the problem above,
using Window functions. We would like to see the
following results.
Expected Results
CustomerID OrderDate NextOrderDate DaysBetweenOrders
---------- ---------- ------------- -----------------
ANTON 2015-09-22 2015-09-25 3
AROUT 2015-11-14 2015-11-17 3
BERGS 2014-08-12 2014-08-14 2
BERGS 2015-02-12 2015-02-13 1
BERGS 2016-02-03 2016-02-06 3
BONAP 2015-11-05 2015-11-06 1
BONAP 2016-02-05 2016-02-09 4
BONAP 2016-03-06 2016-03-11 5
BOTTM 2015-01-10 2015-01-10 0
BOTTM 2016-03-12 2016-03-13 1
BOTTM 2016-03-25 2016-03-27 2
BOTTM 2016-04-23 2016-04-24 1

... (skipping some rows)

SAVEA 2016-03-27 2016-03-30 3

SAVEA 2016-04-17 2016-04-17 0
SEVES 2015-12-26 2015-12-30 4
SUPRD 2016-01-20 2016-01-22 2
SUPRD 2016-04-20 2016-04-21 1
TRADH 2016-01-13 2016-01-15 2
TRADH 2016-01-15 2016-01-19 4
TRAIH 2015-06-19 2015-06-23 4
VICTE 2015-12-31 2016-01-05 5
VICTE 2016-01-21 2016-01-23 2
VINET 2015-11-11 2015-11-12 1
WARTH 2015-01-13 2015-01-16 3
WELLI 2015-12-30 2016-01-01 2
WELLI 2016-02-20 2016-02-24 4
WHITC 2015-10-06 2015-10-08 2
WILMK 2016-02-06 2016-02-10 4
(69 row(s) affected)
Hint
The window function to use here is the Lead function.
Look up some examples of the Lead function online.
As a first step, write SQL using the Lead function to
return results like the following. The NextOrderDate is
a computed column that uses the Lead function.
CustomerID OrderDate NextOrderDate
---------- ---------- -------------
ALFKI 2015-08-25 2015-10-03
ALFKI 2015-10-03 2015-10-13
ALFKI 2015-10-13 2016-01-15
ALFKI 2016-01-15 2016-03-16
ALFKI 2016-03-16 2016-04-09
ALFKI 2016-04-09 NULL
ANATR 2014-09-18 2015-08-08
ANATR 2015-08-08 2015-11-28
ANATR 2015-11-28 2016-03-04
ANATR 2016-03-04 NULL
Hint
You should have something like this:
Select
CustomerID
,OrderDate = convert(date, OrderDate)
,NextOrderDate =
convert(
date
,Lead(OrderDate,1)
OVER (Partition by CustomerID order by CustomerID, OrderDate)
)
From Orders
Order by
CustomerID
,OrderID

Now, take the output of this, and using a CTE and the
DateDiff function, filter for rows which match our
criteria.

Congratulations! You've completed the advanced

problems
Any questions or feedback on the problems, hints, or
answers? I'd like to hear from you. Please email me at
[email protected].
 ANSWERS

Introductory Problems
1. Which shippers do we have?
Answer
Select
*
From Shippers
Discussion
This is a basic select statement, returning all rows, just
to get you warmed up.
Most of the time, a simple select statement like this is
written all on one line, like this:
Select * From Shippers
But because we’ll be getting more complex quickly,
we’ll start out with formatting it with separate lines for
each clause, which we’ll be doing in future questions.
2. Certain fields from Categories
Answer
Select
CategoryName
,Description
from Categories
Discussion
Instead of doing a “Select *”, we specify the column
names, and only get those columns returned.
3. Sales Representatives
Answer
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = 'Sales Representative'
Discussion
This is a simple filter against a string datatype. When
comparing a value to a string datatype, you need to
enclose the value in single quotes.
What happens when you don’t? Try running the
following:
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = Sales Representative

Notice that SQL Server gives the error:

Incorrect syntax near 'Representative'.

What about if you compare against a number? Try the

following:
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = 1

You should get a conversion failure error.

4. Sales Representatives in the United
States
Answer
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = 'Sales Representative'
and Country = 'USA'
Discussion
You can have as many filters in the where clause as
you need. I usually indent all the filters, and put them
on new lines, in order to make it easier to read.
5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID
Answer
Select
OrderID
,OrderDate
From Orders
Where
EmployeeID = 5
Discussion
This simple query filters for one value in the
EmployeeID field, using the “=” comparison operator.
Here’s another set of very commonly used comparison
operators that you’re probably familiar with from math
class:
> Greater than
< Less than
>= Greater than or equal to
<= Less than or equal to
6. Suppliers and ContactTitles
Answer
Select
SupplierID
,ContactName
,ContactTitle
From Suppliers
Where
ContactTitle <> 'Marketing Manager'
Discussion
Another way of expressing the Not is by using the
following
!=
So, the below is equivalent to the answer with “<>”.
Select
CompanyName
,ContactName
,ContactTitle
From Suppliers
Where
ContactTitle != 'Marketing Manager'
7. Products with “queso” in ProductName
Answer
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
From Products
Where
ProductName like '%queso%'
Discussion
The “Like” operator is always used with wildcards,
such as the percent symbol (%), which substitutes for
any number of characters.
Note that even though the search string used a
lowercase “q” with the Like clause
ProductName like '%queso%'

the resulting rows both had an uppercase Q.

Queso Cabrales
Queso Manchego La Pastora
This is because the default installation of SQL Server
is case insensitive, although it is also possible to have
a case-sensitive installation.
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium
Answer
Select
OrderID
,CustomerID
,ShipCountry
From Orders
where
ShipCountry = 'France'
or ShipCountry = 'Belgium'
Discussion
This is a very simple example, but in many situations
you will have multiple where clauses, with combined
“Or” and “And” sections.
In this situation, an alternative would have been to use
the “In” operator. We’ll do that in a future problem.
9. Orders shipping to any country in
Europe
Answer
Select
OrderID
,CustomerID
,ShipCountry
From Orders
where
ShipCountry in
(
'Brazil'
,'Mexico'
,'Argentina'
,'Venezuela'
)
Discussion
Using the In statement like this is a very common
scenario when writing SQL. Whenever there’s more
than just a few—say 2 or 3—values that we’re filtering
for, I will generally put them on separate lines. It’s
easier to read, understand, and modify.
Also, many times the list of items you’re filtering for
will be coming from somewhere else—for instance, a
spreadsheet—and will already be on separate lines.
10. Employees, in order of age
Answer
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,BirthDate
From Employees
Order By Birthdate
Discussion
This is a simple example of an Order By clause.
By default, SQL Server sorts by ascending order (first
to last). To sort in desending order (last to first), run
the following, with the desc keyword:
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,BirthDate
From Employees
Order By Birthdate desc -- keyword desc for last to first search
11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime
field
Answer
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,DateOnlyBirthDate = convert(date, BirthDate)
From Employees
Order By Birthdate
Discussion
What we’re using here is called a computed column,
also sometimes called a calculated column. Anytime
you’re doing something besides just returning the
column, as it is stored in the database, you’re using a
computed column. In this case, we’re applying a
function to convert the datatype returned.
Note that we’ve added a name, DateOnlyBirthDate, for
our computed column. This is called an “alias”.
DateOnlyBirthDate = convert(date, BirthDate)

If you don’t actually specify the column alias, you get

an empty column header, which is very unhelpful.
12. Employees full name
Answer

Select
FirstName
,LastName
,FullName = FirstName + ' ' + LastName
From Employees
Discussion
This is another example of the computed column. In
this case, instead of applying a function to a field,
we’re concatenating two fields.
Another way to do concatenation, as of SQL Server
2012, is using the Concat function, as below.
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,FullName = concat(FirstName , ' ' , LastName)
From Employees

The Concat function isn’t very well known yet, since

SQL programmers are more familiar with using the +
operator to concatenate strings. However, there are
benefits to using Concat — mainly when there are
nulls in the data.
13. OrderDetails amount per line item
Answer
Select
OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,TotalPrice = UnitPrice * Quantity
From OrderDetails
Order by
OrderID
,ProductID
Discussion
Here we have another example of a computed column,
this time using the arithmetic operator “*”for
multiplication.
A note on aliases—I believe the alias structure that I
have above, with the alias name first and the
computation after, is easiset to read.
However, you’ll also very frequently see this structure,
using “as”:
Select
OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,UnitPrice * Quantity as TotalPrice -- Alias using "as"
From OrderDetails
Order by
OrderID
,ProductID
14. How many customers?
Answer
Select
TotalCustomers = count(*)
from Customers
Discussion
Aggregates functions and grouping are very important
when retrieving data. In almost all cases, when doing
data analysis, you’ll be using multiple groupings and
aggregates.
15. When was the first order?
Answer
Select
FirstOrder = min(OrderDate)
From Orders
Discussion
For the aggregate function Count, you don’t need to
specify a column name - just count(*) will work.
However, for other aggregate functions such as Min,
Avg, Sum, etc, you will need to specify a column name
since you’re not just counting all rows.
16. Countries where there are customers
Answer
Select
Country
From Customers
Group by
Country
Discussion
The Group By clause is a cornerstone of SQL. With
most data analysis of any complexity at all, you’ll be
using multiple Group By clauses, so they’re important
to understand.
Another way of getting the same results is to use the
Distinct keyword, as below:
Select distinct
Country
From Customers

It looks simpler, and it is, for queries that are very

straightforward. But in everyday use, you’ll almost
always be using the Group By instead of Distinct,
because you’ll need to use additional aggregate
functions such as Count, and Sum.
17. Contact titles for customers
Answer
Select
ContactTitle
,TotalContactTitle = count(*)
From Customers
Group by
ContactTitle
Order by
count(*) desc
Discussion
This particular construction, with a grouping, and then
a count of the total in each group, is very common both
on its own, and as a part of other queries.
18. Products with associated supplier names
Answer
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,Supplier = CompanyName
From Products
Join Suppliers
on Products.SupplierID = Suppliers.SupplierID
Discussion
Joins can range from the very simple, which we have
here, to the very complex. You need to understand
them thoroughly, as they’re critical in writing anything
but the simplest SQL.
One thing you’ll see when reading SQL code is,
instead of something like the answer above, something
like this:
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,Supplier = CompanyName
From Products P -- Aliased table
Join Suppliers S -- Aliased table
on P.SupplierID = S.SupplierID

Notice that the Products table and Suppliers table is

aliased, or renamed, with one letter aliases—P and S.
If this is done, the P and S need to be used in the On
clause as well.
I’m not a fan of this type of aliasing, although it’s
common. The only benefit is avoiding some typing,
which is trivial. But the downside is severe—it leads
to code that is much harder to read.
It’s not so much a problem in small chunks of SQL
like this one. However, in long, convoluted SQL,
you’ll find yourself wondering what the one-letter
aliases mean, always needing to refer back to the From
clause, and translate in your head.
The only time I use tables aliases is if the table name is
extremely long. And then, I use table alias names that
are understandable, just shortened.
19. Orders and the Shipper that was used
Answer
Select
OrderID
,OrderDate = convert(date, OrderDate)
,Shipper = CompanyName
From Orders
join Shippers
on Shippers.ShipperID = Orders.ShipVia
Where
OrderID < 10300
Order by
OrderID
Discussion
One common coding practice is to write the SQL as
follows, with a table alias added to each column in the
Select statement:
Select
O.OrderID
,OrderDate = convert(date, O.OrderDate)
,Shipper = S.CompanyName
From Orders O
join Shippers S
on S.ShipperID = O.ShipVia
Where
O.OrderID < 10300
Order by
O.OrderID

In this case O is prefixed to the fields from the Orders

table, and S to the fields from the Shippers table.
Usually I don’t do this—I think it just adds extra text
without enhancing readability.
However, it is sometimes impossible to run SQL
without prefixing the column name with the table
name. For instance, try running the following:
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,Supplier = CompanyName
,SupplierID
From Products
 Join Suppliers
on Products.SupplierID = Suppliers.SupplierID

What error do you get? Fix the error by adding a table

name in front of the SupplierID.
Adding a table name to SupplierID is necessary
because otherwise SQL Server doesn’t know if you
want to return the SupplierID from Products or
Suppliers.
Intermediate Problems
20. Categories, and the total products in
each category
Answer
Select
CategoryName
,TotalProducts = count(*)
From Products
Join Categories
on Products.CategoryID = Categories.CategoryID
Group by
CategoryName
Order by
count(*) desc
Discussion
We’re expanding our knowledge of grouping here with
a very common scenario—grouping across two joined
tables. In this case, the tables have what’s called a
parent-child relationship. The parent table is
Categories, and the child table is Products.
21. Total customers per country/city
Answer
Select
Country
,City
,TotalCustomer = Count(*)
From Customers
Group by
Country
,City
Order by
count(*) desc
Discussion
Note that once you have a Group by clause in a SQL
statement, every field that appears in the Select
statement needs to either appear in the Group by
clause, or needs to have some kind of aggregate
function applied to it.
For instance, try running the following, with the City
in the Group by clause commented out, so we’re no
longer grouping by City.
Select
Country
,City
,TotalCustomer = Count(*)
From Customers
Group by
Country
--,City
Order by
count(*) desc

When you run this, you should receive this error

message:
Msg 8120, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
Column 'Customers.City' is invalid in the select list because it is not
contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause.

This means that the query engine doesn't know which

City that you want to display. Every field in the Select
clause needs to either have an aggregate function (like
Sum, Count, etc), or also be in the Group by. The
reason behind this is that there could potentially be
multiple different cities for any one value in the
Country, and the database engine wouldn’t know
whinch one to show.
22. Products that need reordering
Answer
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,UnitsInStock
,ReorderLevel
From Products
Where
UnitsInStock <= ReorderLevel
Order by ProductID
Discussion
This is a straightforward query on one table. Instead of
using a string or numeric value to filter, we’re using
another field.
23. Products that need reordering, continued
Answer
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,UnitsInStock
,UnitsOnOrder
,ReorderLevel
,Discontinued
From Products
Where
UnitsInStock + UnitsOnOrder <= ReorderLevel
and Discontinued = 0
Order by ProductID
Discussion
Instead of writing
and Discontinued = 0

…you can also write the following if you find it easier

to read:
and Discontinued = convert(bit, 'FALSE')
SQL Server will automatically convert it to 0.
24. Customer list by region
Answer
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,Region
From Customers
Order By
Case
when Region is null then 1
else 0
End
,Region
,CustomerID
Discussion
Once we have the Case expression set up correctly,
you just need to create an Order By clause for it, and
add the additional fields for sorting (Region and
CustomerID).
If we had wanted to include the sorting field in the
output , you could write this:
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,Region
,RegionOrder=
Case
when Region is null then 1
else 0
End
From Customers
Order By
RegionOrder
,Region
,CustomerID
You would not need to repeat the case statement in the
Order By, you can just refer to the alias - RegionOrder.
25. High freight charges
Answer
Select Top 3
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = Avg(freight)
From Orders
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc;
Discussion
Using Top is the easiest and most commonly used
method of showing only a certain number of records.
Another way is by using Offset, as below.
Select
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = AVG(freight)
From Orders
Group By ShipCountry
Order by AverageFreight DESC
OFFSET 0 ROWS FETCH FIRST 3 ROWS ONLY
26. High freight charges - 2015
Answer
Select Top 3
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = avg(freight)
From Orders
Where
OrderDate >= '20150101'
and OrderDate < '20160101'
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc;
Discussion
An alternate way to write the where clause is this:
Where
OrderDate >= '1/1/2015'
and OrderDate < '1/1/2016'

Depending on which date format you're used to, it may

be easier to read. However, using the format
YYYYMMDD will be correct world-wide, regardless
of the DateFormat setting in SQL Server.
And here’s still another way of writing this:
Select Top 3
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = avg(freight)
From Orders
Where
year(OrderDate) = 2015 -- using Year function
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc;

This looks straightforward and is easy to read.

However, when you put a function such as Year on the
OrderDate field, we can’t use the index anymore. Also,
you can only filter for specific calendar years, so it’s
not very flexible.
27. High freight charges with between
Answer
The OrderID that’s causing the different results is
10806.
Discussion
There’s an order made on December 31, 2015 with a
really high value in the Freight field. This would have
skewed the results, and put France in third place for
highest freight charges, but only if it were included in
the Where clause.
This SQL would have worked fine if OrderDate were a
Date field, instead of DateTime.
OrderDate between '1/1/2015' and '12/31/2015'
However, since it’s a DateTime field, it gives an
incorrect answer because it's not taking into account
records where the OrderDate is during the day on
December 31, 2015.
Note that for a DateTime field, the value
12/31/2015
is equivalent only to
2015-12-31 00:00:00.000
…and not to values that have a time component.
28. High freight charges - last year
Answer
Select TOP (3)
ShipCountry
,AverageFreight = Avg(freight)
From Orders
Where
OrderDate >= Dateadd(yy, -1, (Select max(OrderDate) from Orders))
Group by ShipCountry
Order by AverageFreight desc;
Discussion
Using SQL like this that can generate a dynamic date
range is critical for most data analysis work. Most
reports and queries will need to be flexible, without
hard-coded date values.
29. Inventory list
Answer
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,Employees.LastName
,Orders.OrderID
,Products.ProductName
,OrderDetails.Quantity
From Employees
join Orders
on Orders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
join Products
on Products.ProductID = OrderDetails.ProductID
Order by
Orders.OrderID
,Products.ProductID
Discussion
This problem is more practice with basic joins and
multiple tables.
You can replace Join with Inner Join, but mostly
people just use Join.
30. Customers with no orders
Answer
Select
Customers_CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
,Orders_CustomerID = Orders.CustomerID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Where
Orders.CustomerID is null
Discussion
There are many ways of getting the same results. The
main options are the Left Join with Is Null, Not In, and
Not Exists.
Above, we used the Left Join option. When
performance is equivalent, I prefer the Not In method,
shown below.
Select CustomerID
From Customers
Where
CustomerID not in (select CustomerID from Orders)

I believe this is the easiest to read and understand.

Another option is to use Not Exists. This requires a

correlated subquery.
Select CustomerID
From Customers
Where Not Exists
(
Select CustomerID
from Orders
where
Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
)

Performance for the different options can be affected

by whether or not the fields are indexed or nullable.
For additional reading on the details, check out this
article: NOT IN vs. NOT EXISTS vs. LEFT JOIN / IS
NULL: SQL Server
(https://explainextended.com/2009/09/15/not-in-vs-
not-exists-vs-left-join-is-null-sql-server/).
31. Customers with no orders for
EmployeeID 4
Answer
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Orders.CustomerID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
and Orders.EmployeeID = 4
Where
Orders.CustomerID is null