Thanks all. I think having a usable execution plan is going to take precedent in this case so an IF...ELSE block

would be my best bet.

This is not a paging attempt,...

Is the concern largely the cost of the storage? If its an archive system infrequently accessed perhaps performance is not a great concern in which case you get the cheapest...

Have you looked at FILESTREAM?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895234%28v=sql.105%29.aspx

FILESTREAM filegroups can stored on compressed volumes.

Two general way to approach this.

If you are using SSIS you can as the previous poster suggested do all of your transform logic in the package and insert your data...

The following goes into some detail...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143504%28v=sql.105%29.aspx

If you run the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard and select your excel file you should get to a screen called 'Select Source Tables and Views' that will show...

I'd recommend starting with these resources.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/

>>I could be wrong, but I don't think you can do this. SQL is more than an image. It has databases, system databases, that are required for it. If the...

Thanks again ColdCoffee. Works great. I think the fact that I had to cross-tab and UNPIVOT to get the desired results was confusing me. It seems my UNION technique is...

This seems to work. Using UNION for each calc seems somewhat weak on the programming elegance scale...

I'd like to stick with the cross tab approach rather than using PIVOT.

CREATE TABLE...

Will do. It's clearly well documented and thoroughly reviewed by a list of heavy hitters. Thanks again.

Thank you both.

Someone around here has something in their signature that says something like don't use code you don't understand. I don't understand the split function although I bet one...

>>which one better?

Given comparable performance and equivalent results I prefer COALESCE.

I doubt there will ever be a poem called ISNULL.

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/coalesce/

And then there is Mary Jo Van Essen.

First Name Initial Last Name

First Name Last Name

Last Name, First Name Initial

Last Name; First Name

Last Name ,First Name

Is the initial always one...

The package will then fail.

Description: Data conversion failed. The data conversion for column "Report_Period" returned status value 4 and status text "Text was truncated or one or more characters had...