Question

DB: SQL Server 2005

We have a table that has data in this manner:

Project              Year        Jan                   Feb                   Mar                   Apr                   May                   Jun                   Jul                   Aug                   Sep                   Oct                   Nov                   Dec
-------------------- ----------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- ---------------------
11-11079             2008        0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  75244.90
11-11079             2009        466.00                0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00
11-11079             2010        855.00                0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00  
01-11052             2009        56131.00              0.00                  36962.00              -61596.00             2428.00               84.00                 0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00                  0.00

Someone would like the data to be displayed as one row for the entire project. The columns would be dynamic dependant on how many years it goes into the future. An example would be:

Project        Jan-2009     Feb-2009     Mar-2009     Apr-2009... Dec-2009     Jan-2010
-------------- ------------ ------------ ------------ ----------- ------------ ---------
11-11079       466.00       0.00         0.00         0.00        0.00         855.00    
01-11052       56131.00     0.00         36962.00     -61596.00   2428.00      0.00

I read of many examples where the date is populated in one column for each entry but I haven’t found any cases where the months are the column name and the year is in the row.

Dynamic SQL with a pivot table?
Or some pretty wide scale manipulation using SQL, temp tables, joins and unions?
Any thoughts on using the SSIS pivot table feature?

Answer 1

Your data is already pivoted, but needs to be pivoted at a different level. I think the best way to handle this is to unpivot it first, then handle the correct pivot level second.

Step 1: Unpivot

You can use the SQL 2005 UNPIVOT command, or use a CROSS JOIN technique. Here are examples of both. Note I left out months in the middle to keep things simple. Just add them in.

-- CROSS JOIN method (also works in SQL 2000)
SELECT
   P.Project,
   Mo =
      DateAdd(mm,
         X.MonthNum,
         DateAdd(yy, P.[Year] - 1900, '19000101')
      ),
   Amount = 
      CASE X.MonthNum
         WHEN 0 THEN Jan
         WHEN 1 THEN Feb
         WHEN 11 THEN Dec
      END
FROM
   ProjectData P
   CROSS JOIN (
      SELECT 0 UNION ALL SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 11
   ) X (MonthNum)

Each row is repeated 12 times, then a CASE statement pulls out only one month for each row, leaving the data nicely unpivoted.

-- UNPIVOT method
SELECT
    P.Project,
    Mo =
       DateAdd(mm,
          Convert(int, P.MonthNum),
          DateAdd(yy, P.[Year] - 1900, '19000101')
       ),
    P.Amount
FROM
   (
      SELECT Project, [Year], [0] = Jan, [1] = Feb, [11] = Dec
      FROM ProjectData
   ) X UNPIVOT (Amount FOR MonthNum IN ([0], [1], [11])) P

DROP TABLE ProjectData

Neither method is a clear performance winner all the time. Sometimes one works better than the other (depending on the data being pivoted). The UNPIVOT method uses a Filter in the execution plan that the CROSS JOIN does not.

Step 2: Pivot Again

Now, how to use the unpivoted data. You didn’t say how your someone will be consuming this, but since you’ll need to put the data in an output file of some kind, I propose using SSRS (Sql Server Reporting Services), which comes with SQL Server 2005 for no extra charge.

Just use the Matrix report object to pivot one of the queries above. This object happily determines the data values to make into column labels at report run-time and sounds like exactly what you need. If you add a column that formats the date exactly how you like, then you can order by the Mo column, but use the new expression as the column label.

SSRS also has a wide variety of formats and scheduling options available. For example, you can have it email an Excel file or save a web page to a file share.

Please let me know if I’ve left anything out.

For anyone who would like to see the code above in action, here’s some creation script for you:

USE tempdb

CREATE TABLE ProjectData (
    Project varchar(10),
    [Year] int,
    Jan decimal(15, 2),
    Feb decimal(15, 2),
    Dec decimal(15, 2)
)

SET NOCOUNT ON

INSERT ProjectData VALUES ('11-11079', 2008, 0.0, 0.0, 75244.90)
INSERT ProjectData VALUES ('11-11079', 2009, 466.0, 0.0, 0.0)
INSERT ProjectData VALUES ('11-11079', 2010, 855.0, 0.0, 0.0)
INSERT ProjectData VALUES ('01-11052', 2009, 56131.0, 0.0, 0.0)