External Article

Natural Language Query for SQL Server

Data is usually the most important asset in organizations, but only SQL developers can frequently access that data. Technical teams often write queries for non-technical users. This restricts agility, slows decision-making, and creates a bottleneck in data accessibility. One possible remedy is natural language processing (NLP), which enables users to ask questions in simple English and receive answers without knowing any code. Still, the majority of NLP-to-SQL solutions are cloud-based, which raises issues with cost and privacy.

External Article

Unlocking the Power of FULL OUTER JOIN in SQL: Performance, Use Cases & Examples

The JOIN statement is one of the most common operations SQL developers perform. Yet in a world ruled by Inner and Left Joins, the poor Full Outer Join is like Cinderella before the ball – allowed out on only the rarest of occasions. In an (unscientific) survey I once performed of SQL developers at one Fortune 100 firm, half of the developers had never used a Full Outer Join in production code, and the rest had used it in a tiny handful of occasions.

External Article

Building a Dynamic Countdown Timer in Power BI

A countdown timer can be a powerful visual tool in many Business Intelligence reporting scenarios. This could be for marketing campaigns, contract expiries, and business deals with clients. Real-time countdown visuals are not natively supported in Power BI. Although, there is the Count Down Timer custom visual, which is not dynamic in its configuration.

Blogs

A New Word: Ecstatic Shock

By

ecstatic shock – n. a surge of energy upon catching a glimpse from someone...

The CDO’s Playbook for AI Driven Decision Making

By

The New Arena of Leadership The role of the Chief Data Officer is no...

sp_snapshot – The easy way to take database snapshots of one or more databases – V3.0

By

Presenting you with an updated version of our sp_snapshot procedure, allowing you to easily...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Arc Enabled SQL Server

By Jo Pattyn

Just saw the "Azure Extension for SQL Server" Does anyone has experience with it?...

Recursive Select - What is this really doing

By Leo.Miller

I've noticed several instances of what looks like a recursive insert with the format:...

Cleaning Up the Cloud

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Cleaning Up the Cloud

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

The Maximum Value in the Identity Column

I have a table with this data: 

TravelLogID CityID StartDate  EndDate
1           1      2025-01-01 2025-01-06
2           2      2025-01-01 2025-01-06
3           3      2025-01-01 2025-01-06
4           4      2025-01-01 2025-01-06
5           5      2025-01-01 2025-01-06
I run this code: 
SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('TravelLog')
I get the value 5 back. Now I do this: 
SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.TravelLog ON
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
    TravelLogID,
CityID,
    StartDate,
    EndDate
)
VALUES
(25, 5, '2025-09-12', '2025-09-17')
SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.TravelLog OFF
I now run this code. 
DBCC CHECKIDENT(TravelLog)
GO
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
    CityID,
    StartDate,
    EndDate
)
VALUES
(4, '2025-10-14', '2025-10-17')
GO
What is the value for TravelLogID for the row I inserted for CityID 4 and dates starting on 14 Oct 2025?  

See possible answers