The Applied SQL Data Analytics Workshop: Second Edition

Working with data means asking questions — and SQL is the language that turns those questions into answers. The Applied SQL Data Analytics Workshop: Second Edition offers a hands-on route into practical SQL for analysts, data scientists, and anyone who needs to extract meaning from relational databases. Instead of a dry reference manual, this workshop-style book builds real skills through exercises, activities, and realistic scenarios.

Build Practical Skills Workshop-Style

Each chapter combines concise explanations with practice. You’ll work through exercises that reinforce each concept immediately, then apply what you’ve learned in a larger activity. The book uses a dealership sales dataset as a running example, helping you connect SQL techniques to real business questions about customers, products, and sales performance.

From Basic Queries to Advanced Analytics

The second edition covers the full analytics workflow in PostgreSQL. You’ll start with SELECT statements, filtering, and table creation, then move into joins, subqueries, and common table expressions. Later chapters explore:

• Aggregate functions and GROUP BY for summarizing data
• Window functions for rankings, running totals, and time-series analysis
• Handling complex data types including dates, geospatial data, arrays, and JSON
• Importing and exporting data with psql, Python, and R
• Performance tuning with indexing and query optimization

Who the Book Helps

If you’re preparing for a data analyst role, improving reporting pipelines, or simply curious about what SQL can do for your data, this book provides a structured, practical path. The step-by-step exercises make it accessible to motivated beginners, while the depth of topics gives experienced analysts new techniques for real-world problems.

The authors bring hands-on experience to each lesson, keeping the focus on what actually matters when working with data. By the end, you’ll have a solid foundation for turning raw data into clear, useful insights.