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Group classroom and online training courses

Fast track SQL course (3 days)

Three days (09:30 to 16:30 UK time each day)

This course is available in the following formats (all prices exclude VAT):

Classroom (London)
£1,895

Classroom (Manchester)
£1,595

Onsite (your office)
Please ask

Online (your home)
£1,295

You can book a place on this course either online through this website, by phone, by email or by filling in our enquiry form.

There are no special pre-requisites for you to satisfy to attend this course, other than to have a good level of IT literacy. If you don't find it easy to create Excel formulae you should avoid this course!

Course schedule

Here are our next few Fast track SQL course dates:

Dates	Times	Venue	Price (excl. VAT)
13-15 May	09:30-16:30	Online	£1,295	Book
03-05 Jul	09:30-16:30	Online	£1,295	Book
20-22 Aug	09:30-16:30	Online	£1,295	Book
07-09 Oct	09:30-16:30	Online	£1,295	Book
25-27 Nov	09:30-16:30	Online	£1,295	Book
Show full list of dates

Got a handful of like-minded people in your organisation? You could consider booking your own customised onsite course, whereby you get to pick the dates and venue!

Course Contents - PDF

Fast track SQL - Course Contents

Out of all of our three-day fast-track courses, this is probably the one which offers the best alternative to the relevant two-day introduction and two-day advanced courses. This is for two reasons:

The progression from selecting data in SQL through to advanced topics like creating stored procedures is natural and fairly straightforward.
The fast-track course misses out some topics which are of less use than others (table-valued functions spring to mind).

However, for many people three days of training can be a day too much, so please do bear this in mind when considering booking onto this course (if you find learning software difficult, this also isn't the course for you).

This fast-track course combines topics from the following other Wise Owl courses:

From our INTRODUCTION TO SQL course

Using SQL Server

SQL Server Management Studio
Controlling windows
Using Object Explorer

Creating databases - overview

Designing databases
Primary keys

Working with tables

Creating tables
Allowing nulls or not
Identity fields
Creating relationships

Simple Queries

Creating queries
Comments
Indentation and case

Setting criteria using WHERE

Wildcards (% and _)
Setting criteria for dates
Coping with nulls

Calculations

Calculated columns
Using aliases
String functions and concatenation

Calculations using dates

GetDate
Converting dates
Useful date functions

Basic joins

Inner joins
Table aliases
Left and right outer joins

Aggregation and grouping

SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX
Various ways to count
Grouping by fields
Using HAVING to filter results

Views

The view designer
Limitations of the designer
Scripting views

Subqueries

The concept of a subquery
Syntax of subqueries
Using subqueries in a query

Derived tables and CTEs

Using derived tables
Common Table Expressions (CTEs)
Multiple CTEs in a single query

From our ADVANCED SQL course

Stored procedures

Creating stored procedures
Executing stored procedures
System stored procedures

Variables

Declaring variables
SET versus SELECT
Tricks with variables
So-called global variables

Parameters and return values

Passing parameters
Default values / WHERE clauses
Output parameters
Using RETURN

Scalar functions if time

What they are
Writing user-defined functions
Worked examples
Pros and cons of scalar functions

Testing conditions

IF / ELSE statement
Using CASE where possible

Looping

Syntax of WHILE
Breaking out of a loop

Error-handling if time

Using TRY / CATCH
System error functions
Custom error messages

Deleting using SQL

Ways to drop tables
DELETE versus TRUNCATE

Updating data in SQL

The UPDATE statement
Updating using joins

Inserting data

Making tables (SELECT INTO)
Appending data (INSERT INTO)
Inserting individual rows

Creating tables

Creating tables in SQL
Primary keys and indexes
Adding relationships

Transactions if time

Beginning a transaction
Committing / rolling back

Temporary tables and table variables

Scope (local versus global)
Using temporary tables
Creating table variables
Pros and cons of each approach

Table-valued functions if time

In-line table-valued functions
Mult-statement table-valued functions

Dynamic SQL if time

Building up dynamic SQL
Executing dynamic SQL
Disadvantages of dynamic SQL

Pivots if time

Assembling data for pivoting
Using PIVOT
Dynamic column headers

Triggers if time

Insert, update and delete triggers
Using generated tables (eg INSERTED)
Using INSTEAD OF

Why Choose Us?

Here are some reasons to choose Wise Owl courses:

No more than 6 people per class
581 references viewable online
Free USB stick containing course files
Genuine Wise Owl trainers only
Unbelievably good courseware

In addition, here are some benefits unique to classroom training:

Proper restaurant lunch included

And some benefits specific to online training:

Courseware manual posted to you in advance
Free half-hour pre-course check-up included
Our clever system means you can use our laptops (and we can see them)

What other people have said

Our thanks to everyone who agreed to share their thoughts. All of the following reviews are from the last 3 calendar years:

"Course content was good and each topic was covered in depth. The trainer was really good at explaining the do's and don't and best practices when working within databases."

Shahrukh Khan (Savi)

"The 3-day Fast-track SQL course was my second course with Wise Owl and I really enjoyed the course as well as the teaching style. The content and pace was good and our trainer answered all questions asked in detail, showing his knowledge and expertise in the subject. Would recommend this course to anyone."

Shaila Hunt (BUPA)

"I thought that the pace of the course was good. We had an excellent trainer; personable, keeping explanations to the point, and leading 'code along' examples of the topics in a way I found both accessible and instructive. I found the suggested real world implementations of concepts that we covered to be helpful. The fundamentals of SQL were covered in such a way that I was able to understand the topics without being side-tracked by complex alternative ways of doing things. The exercises we completed were appropriate for such a short course, and very much helped to solidify my understanding of the useful Left Join. We covered the advanced course at a pace I found to be pleasantly challenging while remaining interesting. Overall I though that the course has been an invaluable help to using SQL in the workplace, and the online training was practical, enjoyable and expertly paced. The course was recommended by a colleague!"

Jonathan Ferguson (Southbank Centre)

"The course was really well paced. The trainer made sure we understood the basics before continuing."

Megan Roberts (Southbank Centre)

"I thought the training was a good introduction to SQL. The trainer was obviously very experienced and I found it useful that he explained why certain aspects were important, rather than just how. He was clear and easy to understand. "

Jessica Clark (West Berkshire Council)

There are lots more where these came from (or just refresh this page to change the quotes shown).

How our training courses work

Below are some notes on how Wise Owl courses work, to help you decide whether they're for you or not.

What you'll need

If you book on a classroom course, the only thing you need to bring to the course is ... yourself! We even provide a notepad and a suprisingly nice pen for you to take notes with.

For online training you'll need two things:

A good internet connection (otherwise you'll have a frustrating time); and
A second screen (a requirement, not a nice-to-have!)

You can see full details of our online course requirements here.

When you book a place

If you book a place on one of our courses:

For classroom courses we will send out a joining email. That's it!
For online courses we will get in touch to organise a half-hour pre-course check to iron out any connection problems before the course (rather than during it).

Whatever type of course you book, we will also send you out a reminder a few days before the course is due to take place - not that (we hope) you'll have forgotten!

What you won't need

For classroom training, you won't need a computer - we (obviously) will provide that. However, you're welcome to use your own laptop if you prefer, providing that you have the correct software installed.

For online training you will need a computer, but you won't need to have any software installed. This is because you'll use Windows Remote Desktop to connect to our computers, and these will have all of the necessary files and software installed.

The start of the course

For online courses you will be able to join up to half an hour before the course begins. This will give you time to:

familiarise yourself with the set-up;
meet your trainer; and
get to know the other delegates!

For classroom training it's always nice if people arrive a bit early too, to give people time to meet each other (and drink coffee).

You'll be given a full colour courseware manual, an exercise booklet to go with the course and a USB stick for taking course files away (we'll post all this to you for online courses).

After the course

After the course finishes you'll receive a digital certificate proving your attendance (we will gladly send a paper copy on request also).

We don't have any formal arrangement for answering questions after the course, but if you get stuck on something and email your trainer they should (and nearly always do!) respond as quickly as their training schedule allows.

Related Courses

You might like to consider these related courses:

Introduction to SQL

Introduction

2 day course

Advanced SQL

Advanced