Common Technical Interview Questions for a SQL/BI

Professional Position
Because BI is such a wide and diverse area, its not only possible but likely that
someone might be asked to demonstrate knowledge in many different areas. But
before I even get to the actual items, here are some other issues to be aware of:
First, please, REVIEW all prior labs we did in class, review your projects and how
you put them together, and review any videos. For the SQL and MDX classes,
review the code samples we covered all of them relate to topics that you might be
tested on. Also, go back and review your tests, as some test questions are based
on technical interview questions. I cannot stress these points enough.
Second, when I say demonstrate knowledge, Im not just talking about a short
answer: Ive been on both sides of the interview table, and I know that a candidate
may be asked to demonstrate a concept on a whiteboard. For instance, the
interviewer might describe a specific scenario that calls for a type 2 Slowly
Changing Dimension, and ask the candidate to map out a solution. The interviewer
is evaluating several things: the candidates thought process (including whether
the candidate recognizes the situation to begin with) and how the candidate goes
about describing a possible solution.
If youre on-site, you might be asked to create a brief sample. This is to make sure
you can play the piano in addition to stating where the piano keys are located.
You might be asked to create a simple report, or create a basic SSIS package, or
write a T-SQL code sample, with the person watching. Yes, it can be unnerving, but
the more youre prepared for it, the better your chances. I know of situations where
someone needed to demonstrate transaction isolation levels by opening up two
query windows and simulating a locking scenario with a User A and User B
situation. And even if youre not asked to do that, the preparation might still help in
other areas.
Third, take these types of questions as an opportunity to showcase your
experiences. Youre auditioning - youre on center stage and you want them to
feel comfortable with your ability to communicate an answer/solution. Dont
hesitate to cleverly pull in relevant details from other things youve built and dont
be shy about giving them too much relevant information. If the interviewer feels
youve nailed the question, he/she will simply stop you and say something like , Ok,
fine.good, next question
Fourth, and very important, try to be aware of the technical knowledge of the
person interviewing you. This might seem strange to say wont the person doing
the technical interviewing be a technical person themselves? Not necessarily! In
some cases, when a company is using a recruiter, the technical team will give a
recruiter a list of questions to ask a candidate. This is done to avoid wasting a

technical managers time but it also means that a non-technical person is asking
technical questions, and therefore probably wont be able to interpret an answer. In
this process, the recruiter is given a list of questions and stock answers: this
means you could provide an acceptable response that isnt exactly the way the
expected answer is written.
This is a tricky situationand while it might seem like an unfair situation, it is what
it is. So you have to really think about each question posed to you and how a
generic answer might have been prepared. Yes, it does sound like you have to
read the mind of someone. Im not saying all technical interviews are like this
but in some cases, this can happen. If youre in this spot and youve given an
answer that you know is acceptable, but the recruiter reacts differently, see if you
can quickly adjust.
Finally, before going into the specifics of each technology a final word to prepare
everyone. For the technologies youre interviewing for, make sure youre able to
quote each major piece of functionality in the tools, and what they do. For instance,
the question might be, name the options (horizontal tabs) from left to right in the
SSAS cube editor, and what they do. So the answer would be cube structure (and
what it does), dimension usage, calculations, KPIs, Actions, Partitions, etc.
Now
imagine that same question for the dimension editor.or in SSIS, for the control
flow, etc. The interviewer might or might not expect you to get EVERY one but
someone who struggles immediately will not have good odds of succeeding.
Some will remember that Ive often used the analogy that the BI MP is like Medical
school. Well, imagine a medical exam that asks you to name the bones and
muscles in the leg and what they do. Same concept!!!
OK, here are the categories and specific topics/questions you should prepare for
(starting on the next page). Ive listed ones that Ive seen, that friends/colleagues
of mine have seen, that former students have told me about, and ones that Ive
read. That doesnt mean there arent other questions out there you could Google
on SSIS Interview questions and find some that are also on my list and some that
arent.

SQL Server 2005 /2008

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General database concepts and general SQL technology questions

What is a clustered index and why would you need one?
What is a primary key
What is an identity key
What is a UniqueIdentifier (and the differences between a GUID
and an identity key)
Why might you split a database into partitions and filegroups
What is a foreign key and how you do you create foreign key
constraints
Whats the difference between a Char(50) and a Varchar(50)
Describe the common SQL Server 2005 Data Types ["what's the
difference between a smallint and int, or between a bigint and
tinyint"]
Execution Plans
How do you view an execution plan
Name some tasks/items you might see in an execution plan
(index seek, index scan, Bookmark Lookup, etc.) and which
ones are more efficient than others
What steps might you take to optimize a query?
SQL Server Agent (you can use agent to schedule packages, execute
reports, or even run different SQL jobs on a schedule)
T-SQL questions
Basic T-SQL syntax:
Write a basic query to join two tables by a common key
Write a query to show all the customers in a customer table
that dont have an order in the orders table (where the
orders table contains a customer key)
Write a query that shows all the customers in a customer
table who have more than five orders in an order table.
More advanced questions on SQL/T-SQL (these often separate a
true DB professional from a non-professional)
Update/Insert Triggers (describe what do they do, what are
the system tables that are exposed during a trigger)
[INSERTED/DELETED])

KNOW THE MERGE STATEMENT, INSIDE

AND OUT!!! Ive had people come back
and tell me they really tripped on this one

The different transaction isolation levels

o Read uncommitted, read committed [default],
repeatable read, serializable, and snapshot [new to
2005]).the differences between tem, why youd use
one, etc.

In some cases, you might be asked to write a

code sample with the classic User A, User B
scenario
o Transactions (begin trans, rollback, etc.)
Related to that, they may ask about how you handle errors
and exceptions in T-SQL code (try.catch)
Know the difference between HAVING and WHERE
Know the differences between DELETE and TRUNCATE
In general, go back and study all the T-SQL notes
from the first week!

SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services)

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Name 5 control flows tasks, and 5 data flow tasks, and what they do
Be prepared to list the major functions in BIDS for a package (control flow,
data flow, event handler tabs..configurations..variablespackage
logging) so remember all the major BIDS options
Whats the difference between precedence constraints on a CFT and a
pipeline connector in the DFT?
Describe the different ways you can configure a precedence constraint
between two tasks in a control flow
How would you go about adding data from other database (e.g. Oracle,
DB2, etc.) into a SQL Server database?
What are some different examples of file sources in SSIS (flat flat, OLE DB
source, Excel, XML)
How do you handle instances in a package where you dont know certain
pieces of information until runtime? (like an email server, a database
server, a folder, etc)
Write a simple SSIS script to accumulate variables
What are the differences between synchronous data flow tasks and
asynchronous data flow tasks
What are the names of the system variables used to configure a fuzzy
lookup/fuzzy grouping (confidence, similarity, threshold)
How do you deploy SSIS packages, and what are the package deployment
destination options
How do you configure SSIS packages
Name the different ways you can define error handling in SSIS packages
(both in the control flow and data flow)
The difference between type 1 and type 2 SCD (slow changing
dimensions)
When you deploy SSIS packages, what is the system database thats used
(MSDB)
Whats the name of the CFT that allows you to create a loop construct
(foreach loop container)
How do you specify transaction support and transaction isolation level in
SSIS?
How do you call stored procedures with parameters inside SSIS?
Describe a good use for the Multicast Data Flow task
Some scenarios:
Suppose you have a set of account managers. You need to send an
email that summarizes orders for each account manager, for all
orders placed since the last run. Describe the tasks youd use in
SSIS to accomplish that
Things to review....the Appdev book, and the SSIS videos

Here are some good links with content on interview questions (some of
these are part of public forum discussions, and so certain sections are a
bit chatty, but theres still some very good information in each link)
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlintegrationservices/t
hread/b2ede456-ce40-4978-ba86-0b42270da875
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic394152-148-1.aspx
http://msbiravindranathreddy.blogspot.com/2008/11/ssis-questionsand-answers.html
http://www.dotnetspider.com/forum/158771-Sql-Server-Integrationservices-Interview-questions.aspx
http://www.techinterviews.com/ms-sql-server-interview-questions
(a bit dated, but still good)
http://ambals.blogspot.com/2009/06/sql-server-interview-questionspart-1.html (I debated on this one, because some of the questions
are extremely basic..but this site is broken up into multiple pages,
and there is some decent information)
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic394152-148-1.aspx
(this page is kind of chatty, but theres a post by someone in the
middle of the page that is excellentit covers both SSIS and SSRS
questions.Ive included the same link below in the SSRS section

SSAS
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They will ask you to describe a cube and a set of dimensions that youve
created in the past
What are some of the dimension and fact table processing options (for full
and incremental updates)
Just like with BIDS and SSIS, be able to verbally list all of the tabs in the
cube and dimension editors
Know the difference between attribute relationships and hierarchies, and
what theyre for
Many interviewers want to make sure that you know how to do more than
simply use the cube wizard to create cubes - here are some areas where
they want to know that youve done some amount of work
modifying/tweaking the cube afterwards
Tweaking Dimension usage (if some measure groups arent
available for some dimensions)
NULL HANDLING
Overriding of the default AGGREGATION
Modifying dimensions
Created hierarchies and attribute relationships
Setting attribute properties (like Keycolumns, NameColumn,
etc.)
Whats the difference between a ROLE and a PERSPECTIVE (you want to
be very clear on the distinction)
Know the (BIG) difference between a security role and role-playing
dimension (these two have nothing to do with each other, but sometimes
people confuse them)
The difference between a star and snowflake dimension, and the
benefits/advantages
You may get asked a question about drill-through techniques and report
actions (what types of actions are available)
Storage modes: MOLAP/HOLAP/ROLAP
(data persistence/storage
models)
You very well might get asked MDX questions
They might ask questions where the answer is going to be a specific
MDX statement and maybe a little bit about the usage
You be asked to write a MDX snippet, or (more likely) to read four
different MDX examples and indicate which one is correct
Be prepared to talk about MDX code to do things like calculating a
52-week moving average, a % of Parent, or same time a year ago
KPIs:
Describe some business examples of KPIs
What are the possible output(display) values for a KPI
How would you write a KPI to show how a measure is trending,
compared to the same time a year ago
Here are two VERY GOOD links on SSAS/MDX questions:

http://www.ssas-info.com/analysis-services-implementations/69experience/1352-dave-rodabaughs-analysis-services-interviewquestions
http://www.datawarehousingguide.com/content/view/122/60/

SSRS
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Deployment (almost guaranteed) different types of deployments

(native SSRS mode versus SharePoint mode)
If a user gets an error running a report in a browser, where would you go
to view the log?
Implementing Drill-down (#1, you set the hidden and visible props, and
you start at the lowest level, and work your way up, one level shy of the
top level)
Name the different report object (table, matrix, textbox), and different
chart types that are available
Remember all the major functionality options in a group (creating a
document map, subtotals, page break behavior, etc.)
If the organization is migrating from Crystal Reports to SSRS, they might
ask about options that are in one, but not the other
Different ways to read data (OLAP and relational sources)
Report Parameters
Describe a situation where you would use a hidden parameter?
When does SSRS automatically generate report parameters
How to handle dynamic images
Know the major charts in SSRS, and some of the charting limitations
Whats the difference between a table and a matrix
Major enhancements from 2005 to 2008 to 2008r2
Management of shared data sources
Remember that you can potentially use the URL string of a report to run
the report for certain parameters or certain default output export formats
How do you build a report when you have multiple levels of detail?
[subreports]
Report expression (theyll give you 4 report expressions, you pick the one
thats correct)
Functionality in the Report Manager
Subscriptions and data driven subscriptons
Snapshots
Report history
Redefining data source credentials for running reports unattended
(what specifically must to be done to report data sources)
Here are some good links with additional topics:
http://sqlserversolutions.blogspot.com/2011/06/ssrs-interviewquestions.html
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic394152-148-1.aspx
(this page is kind of chatty, but theres a post by someone in the
middle of the page that is excellentit covers both SSIS and SSRS
questions.Ive included the same link above in the SSIS section