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HKFuey

asked on 5/15/2014

Removing Outliers in a SQL Server Query

I have a view, one column averages the last 3 months sales. Sometimes the average is skewed by large values I would like to ignore.

e.g. if I have sales of 10 for month 1, 10 for month 2, and 100 for month 3, is there any way of ignoring the large number that is skewing the average? If so does anyone know the syntax?

Microsoft SQL Server 2005Microsoft SQL Server 2008SQL

Last Comment

HKFuey

8/22/2022 - Mon

SOLUTION

Lee

5/15/2014

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Harish Varghese

5/15/2014

You can use a case statement in the AVG function as below:

SELECT yourcolumns, 
      AVG (CASE WHEN SALES < 100000 THEN SALES ELSE NULL END) 
FROM SALES TABLE
GROUP BY yourcolumns

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Guy Hengel [angelIII / a3]

5/15/2014

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Lee

5/15/2014

Well, again I live and learn. I didn't know SQL had a standard deviation function!

Thanks for the heads up!

HKFuey

5/15/2014

ASKER

Still not sure of syntax: -

STDEV((SalesQty1 + SalesQty2 + SalesQty3) / 3)

Returns null

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rwheeler23

Lee

5/15/2014

Make sure that there are no nulls in SalesQty1, 2 or 3 and then divide by 3.0

STDEV((SalesQty1 + SalesQty2 + SalesQty3) / 3.0)

Guy Hengel [angelIII / a3]

5/15/2014

if any of the 3 values is null, this would be normal, and anyhow this shall be done set-wise, and not per row ...

again: what is the rule/threshold to consider 1 value to be "ignored" compared to the 2 others?

SOLUTION

Harish Varghese

5/15/2014

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HKFuey