Window functions make building complex queries much simpler. They are so powerful that they are a dividing point in the SQL timeline: people talk about SQL before window functions and SQL after window functions.

Limited support for window functions was introduced in SQL Server 2005, but full support became available in SQL Server 2012. With the addition of window functions and Common Table Expressions, SQL became Turing complete – able to solve all kinds of complicated problems!

This course is designed for beginning database analysts, developers who want to keep their knowledge of SQL current, students learning about relational databases, and anyone who wants to learn T-SQL window functions. Keep in mind, however, that this course is not intended for complete T-SQL beginners. We assume you already know how to:

• query a single table,
• query multiple tables using different JOINs,
• sort and group rows,
• and use the HAVING statement.

If you have not written a single T-SQL query before, we recommend that you take SQL Basics in SQL Server for SQL Server course first and come back to join us later.