Excel possesses formidable database powers. Creating a relational database starts with a Master table that links it to subordinates, called (awkwardly) Slave, Child, or Detail tables. Before we dive ...

Database normalization is the cornerstone of database theory. Once a database is normalized, relationships between the data in multiple tables must be established. A hefty part of designing a ...

For the most part, you're probably accustomed to using Microsoft Excel for tasks such as preparing reports, forecasts, and budgets. However, Excel is much more powerful than that. It can be used to ...

Excel created pivot tables to improve upon its convoluted, weak reporting features (which are still available). The pivot table is actually a collection of tools that Excel uses to help you create ...

SQL Server's OpenJson function will let you dismantle JSON structures into relational tables, including tables with foreign/primary key relationships. As I noted in an earlier column, JSON is great ...

File-based databases have been around since the dawn of computing. We’ve always needed to have a way of storing records of the same kind of information. In the PC world, we ended up with very popular ...

SQL is neither the fastest nor the most elegant way to talk to databases, but it is the best way we have. Here’s why Today, Structured Query Language is the standard means of manipulating and querying ...