Advice for SQL beginner, where to start?

Hi Jamie,

I’m new to Power BI and I’ve never used SQL. I have a couple quick questions I thought you might be able to answer.

SQL - Do you have any recommendations for learning SQL? I honestly don’t know where to start.

Power BI - My IT group helped me connect via ODBC to our ERP directly but it takes forever to pull from it (any change in Transform causes Power BI to recalculate for what seems like every row in the table). Is it better/possible to pull down ERP table to SQL then have Power BI access SQL? Again, I don’t even have the SQL program so this might not be the right way to think about it. You mentioned you think in SQL so I’m sure you can correct me.

Thanks in advance.

Dan

1 Like

There are tons of material available on the internet for learning SQL and some of the best resources are:

These two sites would help you a lot in learning SQL.

1 Like

@dan I took this course and it is amazing:

https://www.udemy.com/course/microsoft-sql-from-a-to-z/

If you want to read a book then Itzik Ben Gan’s book should be your priority.

3 Likes

Hi Dan, it depends on your learning style - I watch loads of videos which open your mind to concepts. Then I work at specific problems, until I either solve them, or cannot spend any more time on them. At this point I ask someone more experienced than me how to solve the problem, and then I learn from their solution, and save it as a “pattern”.

As for pulling your data from an ERP system into Power BI - there is no quick answer here - it’s a huge area (it’s what I do for a living). Further discussion is probably outside the scope of this forum but I am happy to talk further if you want to see what your options are.

2 Likes

@AntrikshSharma @Jamie @quantumudit

Thank you all for your feedback. I’ll check out the resources you mentioned.

1 Like

Hi @dan, a response on this post has been tagged as “Solution”. If you have a follow question or concern related to this topic, please remove the Solution tag first by clicking the three dots beside Reply and then untick the check box. Also, we’ve recently launched the Enterprise DNA Forum User Experience Survey, please feel free to answer it and give your insights on how we can further improve the Support forum. Thanks!