Managing Relational Databases

Overview

Students will learn about the structure and design of relational databases including primary and foreign key fields, one-to-many and one-to-one relationships. Students will learn about the Structured Query Language (SQL) and use SQL to examine the database structure. They will also learn to create and manage databases, tables, and records. The focus of the course is on data analysis. Students will start with basic SQL queries then learn to add conditional statements, and logical, comparison and arithmetic operators. Students will learn to query for a range of values, and to use pattern matching and regular expressions. Then they will progress to using multiple conditions, and complex criteria, adding functions to create calculated fields, retrieve unique records and aggregate data. Then students will learn to query multiple tables using joins, creating complex queries using subqueries, nested subqueries, and subqueries in the WHERE and FROM clauses. Students will use SQL to control the output of data including parsing text and numbers, grouping results and using ROLLUP. Students will perform labs that give practical experience and then they will complete a capstone project to demonstrate mastery of course objectives.

Syllabus

Database Fundamentals

In this module, you will learn about the concepts behind databases and relational database. You will explore the structure of a relational database and SQL, the language used to manage relational databases. Then you will master the skills to create queries using the SELECT statement including conditional queries, logical operations, comparison and arithmetic operators. Finally you will explore more complex criteria that can be used to search for ranges and with pattern matching.

Multiple Conditions and Complex Criteria

In this module you will learn how to create queries with multiple criteria using the key words AND and OR. You will also learn to create queries using more complex criteria involving comparison and arithmetic operators, searching for ranges of values, handling NULL values, and finally incorporating pattern matching and regular expressions.

Working with Functions

In this module, you will learn about functions and date and time data types. You will learn to use date and aggregate functions to extract and analyze data. You will also learn to format dates, strings and numbers so they can be used for reporting and analysis.

Retrieving and Organizing Data from Multiple Tables

In this module, you will learn how to combine multiple queries together using UNION, INTERSECT and EXCEPT. Then you will learn how to combine data from multiple tables using joins. You will learn the four types of joins and then explore using them with multiple tables and for self-joins. Finally, you will organize data using ORDER BY, GROUP BY, and ROLLUP.

Using Subqueries

In this module, you will learn how to use subqueries, which are queries contained inside of other queries. You will learn how and when to use subqueries in the WHERE and FROM clauses. You will also learn about correlated subqueries and subqueries used to test for the existence of records. Finally you will learn how to create nested subqueries for situations where just one subquery won't get the data you need.

Manipulating Table Data

In this module, you will learn how to create databases, tables and fields. You will learn to insert new records, update existing records, and delete records that are no longer needed.