SQL Query Design Patterns and Best Practices

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Efficiently Aggregating Data

In the previous chapter, you learned how to reduce the number of rows and columns contained in your dataset so that you have the data required to do the analysis that you are interested in. The next step that you will want to do is to aggregate your data so that you have summarized information making it easier to show the information in an easy-to-consume dataset.

In this chapter, you will learn the what, when, and how of data aggregation in SQL so that the dataset can be used by most end users to do successful analytics. We will start with what data should be aggregated, followed by a discussion on when the data should be aggregated and the different methods of aggregating the data. The chapter will wrap up with ...