Question

How do you create a moving average in SQL?

Current table:

Date             Clicks 
2012-05-01       2,230
2012-05-02       3,150
2012-05-03       5,520
2012-05-04       1,330
2012-05-05       2,260
2012-05-06       3,540
2012-05-07       2,330

Desired table or output:

Date             Clicks    3 day Moving Average
2012-05-01       2,230
2012-05-02       3,150
2012-05-03       5,520          4,360
2012-05-04       1,330          3,330
2012-05-05       2,260          3,120
2012-05-06       3,540          3,320
2012-05-07       2,330          3,010

Answer 1

One way to do this is to join on the same table a few times.

select
 (Current.Clicks 
  + isnull(P1.Clicks, 0)
  + isnull(P2.Clicks, 0)
  + isnull(P3.Clicks, 0)) / 4 as MovingAvg3
from
 MyTable as Current
 left join MyTable as P1 on P1.Date = DateAdd(day, -1, Current.Date)
 left join MyTable as P2 on P2.Date = DateAdd(day, -2, Current.Date)
 left join MyTable as P3 on P3.Date = DateAdd(day, -3, Current.Date)

Adjust the DateAdd component of the ON-Clauses to match whether you want your moving average to be strictly from the past-through-now or days-ago through days-ahead.

• This works nicely for situations where you need a moving average over only a few data points.
• This is not an optimal solution for moving averages with more than a few data points.