SQL Pivot with CASE
Turn categories into summary columns without vendor-specific PIVOT syntax.
What this solves
Show scan statuses as separate columns per PO. This pattern is useful when the business question is clear but a generic tutorial is too abstract.
The rule
Conditional aggregation is portable and explicit.
SELECT PO, SUM(CASE WHEN Shift='A' THEN Qty ELSE 0 END) ShiftA, SUM(CASE WHEN Shift='B' THEN Qty ELSE 0 END) ShiftB FROM Output GROUP BY PO;Real-work checklist
- Define the business key and expected grain before writing the formula, query or markup.
- Test the pattern on a small known sample where you can verify the answer manually.
- Check missing values, duplicates and data types before trusting a large result.
- Scale to the real file or database only after the logic is proven.
Common mistake
Do not create hundreds of dynamic columns when a normalized result would be easier to use.