15 Exciting SQL Project Ideas & Topics For Beginners [2023]

Summary:

In this Article, you will learn 15 exciting SQL project ideas & topics for beginners.

1. Library Management System
2. Centralized College Database
3. Student Database Management
4. Online Retail Application Database
5. Inventory Control Management
6. Hospital Management System
7. Railway System Database
8. Payroll Management System
9. An SMS-based Remote Server Monitoring System
10. Blood Donation Database
11. Art Gallery Management Database
12. Cooking Recipe Portal
13. Carbon Emissions Calculator
14. A Voice-based Transport Enquiry System
15. Database Interfacing for LabVIEW Robotic Control

Read more to know each in detail.

The modern business world has experienced an upsurge in data-driven decision making in the last few years. And extracting and filtering out crucial information from data silos is made easy with programming languages like SQL. One of the multiple reasons to learn SQL. Moreover, SQL databases are used in almost every website or web application today. As computer science students or aspiring developers, you are always on the lookout for easy-to-implement SQL project ideas. Finding unique and impressive SQL topics can require heavy brainstorming. So, we have compiled some interesting ones for you below. 

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When you build and design a database with real-life applicability, it will not only refine your conceptual understanding but also boost your problem-solving skills. So, hone your skills and upstart your career by implementing the following SQL database project ideas! while starting a career.

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Top SQL Project Ideas For Beginners

Impressive SQL projects for resume are vital to strengthen your resume as a beginner. Here are some beginner-friendly SQL topics for you to choose from. Some of these suggestions are SQL projects with source code and DBMS projects using SQL with source. 

1. Library Management System

An online library management system offers a user-friendly way of issuing books and also viewing different books and titles available under a category. This type of Management Information System (MIS) can be easily developed in Asp.Net using C#. And SQL queries enable quick retrieval of the required information.  

Take the example of your college library, where both teachers and students can issue books. Usually, the number of days within which you have to return the book varies for both the groups. Also, each book has a unique ID, even if they are copies of the same book by the same author. So, a library management system has an entry for every book, capturing who has issued it, the issue duration, and the amount of fine, if any.

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2. Centralized College Database

A college has academic departments, such as the Department of English, Department of Mathematics, Department of History, and so on. And each department offers a variety of courses. Now, an instructor can teach more than one course. Let’s say a professor takes a class on Statistics and also on Calculus.

As a student in the Mathematics department, you can enroll in both of these courses. Therefore, every college course can have any number of students. Here, an important point to note is that a particular course can have only one instructor to avoid overlaps. 

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3. Student Database Management

Similarly, you can do a student record-keeping project. The database would contain general student information (such as name, address, contact information, admission year, courses, etc.), attendance file, marks or result file, fee file, scholarship file, etc. An automated student database streamlines the university administration process to a considerable degree. 

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4. Online Retail Application Database

As e-commerce experiences remarkable growth around the world, online retail application databases are among the most popular SQL project ideas. The application allows the customer to register and buy an item using the internet. The registration process typically involves the generation of a unique customer ID and password and in many cases, consolidates information like Name, Address, Contact Information, Bank details, etc.

Once a user purchases a product, a bill is generated based on the quantity, price, and discount, if any. The customer has to choose a payment method to settle the transaction before it is delivered to the selected location. 

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5. Inventory Control Management

Inventory control is the process of ensuring that a business maintains an adequate stock of materials and products to meet customer demands without delay. Both overstocking and understocking situations are undesirable, and the aim is to maximize profitability by keeping inventory at the optimum level. 

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Therefore, the design goals of an inventory control management database would focus on holding the required items, increasing inventory turnover, retaining safety stock levels, obtaining raw materials at lower costs, bringing down storage costs, reducing insurance costs, etc. 

6. Hospital Management System

It is a web-based system or software that enables you to manage the functioning of a hospital or any other medical setup. It creates a systematic and standardized record of patients, doctors, and rooms, which can be controlled only by the administrator. All patients and doctors will have a unique and will be related in the database depending on the ongoing treatments. Also, there will be separate modules for hospital admission, patients’ discharge summary, duties of nurses and ward boys, medical stores, etc.

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7. Railway System Database

In this database system, you need to model different train stations, railway tracks between connecting stations, the train details (a unique number for each train), rail routes and schedule of the trains, and passenger booking information. To simplify your project, you can assume that all the trains run every day and have only a one-day journey to their respective destinations. As for recording, you can focus on storing the following details for each station on a rail route: 

• In time: When the train arrives at a station
• Out time: When the train leaves a station (This would be the same as in-time if the train does not halt at a station)
• Station’s sequential number: The order of the station in the route

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8. Payroll Management System

It is one of the most preferred SQL database project ideas due to its extensive usage across industries. An organization’s salary management system calculates the monthly pay, taxes, and social security of its employees. It computes the salaries using employee data (name, designation, pay scale, benefits, etc.) and attendance records, including the leaves taken.

Then, based on certain formulas, the software generates output in the form of bank files and salary slips. Similarly, a tax file is created for the tax office and stored in the database. 

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9. An SMS-based Remote Server Monitoring System

Such systems are particularly beneficial for large corporate organizations having massive data centers and multiple servers. Since these servers host a large number of applications, it becomes tricky to monitor their functionality. Usually, when a server is down or has crashed, the clients inform the organization about it.

To avoid delays in corrective actions, you need a web-based solution that can remotely keep a check on these server failures. Such an application would periodically ping the servers based on predetermined rules, and then send an SMS to a predetermined list of specialists in case a server is found non-functional. This message would contain specific details about the server, the time of failure, etc. 

10. Blood Donation Database

This database would store interrelated data on patients, blood donors, and blood banks. You can take a cue from the data points given below. 

• Patient’s Name, Unique ID, Blood group, and Disease
• Donor’s Name, Unique ID, Blood Group, Medical Report, Address, Contact Number
• Blood bank’s Name, Address, Blood banks’ donor details (name, address, contact number)

Now, try to implement the same in a database by creating a schema, an Entity-Relationship (E-R) diagram, and then attempt normalizing it.

11. Art Gallery Management Database 

The E-R diagram for an art gallery or museum would comprise the following data:

• About Artist: Name, Age, Birthplace, Style of work
• About Art Works: Artist, Year of making, Unique title, Style of art, price

If you are running an art store, you can also organize and manage all your customer information, including names, addresses, the amount spent, liking and interests. 

12. Cooking Recipe Portal

This is another application of SQL databases in the creative field. You can model a web portal where a stored procedure will display your cooking recipes under different categories. Here’s how you can contain and feature your information:

• Cooking recipe article/blog using RichText HTML editor
• ‘Recipe of the Day’ with the highest ratings/likes 
• Recipes viewed in the last 5 Hours

You can also add the functionality for users to rate the recipes and comment on them. If you want to edit or delete a recipe, you can do so in a password-protected admin area. 

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13. Carbon Emissions Calculator

Lately, environmental conservation has been receiving a lot of attention globally. You can also contribute to the cause by developing a web application that measures the carbon footprint of buildings. This calculator will use data such as floor area and workdays per year combined with user-selected data or custom values on building type, climate zones, type of water fixtures, etc.

So, the emissions given as outputs can be attributable to energy use, domestic water use, transportation, disposal of solid waste. American company CTG Energetics Inc. has conceptualized a similar tool based on an Excel file and later converting it into an SQL server web application. Also, there are some advanced Excel formulas that help to do work in a better way.

14. A Voice-based Transport Enquiry System

This innovative tool helps you save time while travelling. You would have noticed long queues outside the transport controller’s office at public transport terminals. This is where commuters make inquiries about the different types of transport facilities available. In this scenario, technology-enabled transport enquiry systems can result in huge savings of time and effort. You can develop an automated system for bus stands, railway stations, and airports that can receive voice commands and also answer in a voice-based format. 

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15. Database Interfacing for LabVIEW Robotic Control

LabVIEW is a dynamic tool that uses data to modify the operating parameters of a robot, depending on different conditions. In order to do this, the data should be stored in such a way that it is readily accessible by the program. Hence, database interfaces are developed to facilitate effective communication. SQL queries within the database allow structured and convenient storage and retrieval of data, which, in turn, improves the robot’s functionality. 

The above suggestions would be great SQL projects for resume. 

However, once you are done with these SQL topics, you can look into the below-mentioned suggestions that are a bit on the intermediate to pro-level but are great SQL projects for resume. 

Under the intermediate to advanced SQL topics, there are functions, data pivoting, cursors, triggers, dynamic SQL, data modelling and many more. 

• Temporary Functions: With the help of SQL, you can create temporary or permanent user-defined functions (UDF) and give inputs to perform actions. Temporary functions like such help you divide larger chunks of codes into smaller bits. As a result, delivering cleaner codes. It also prevents the repetition of code similar to functions used in Python. 

• CTEs aka Common Table Expressions: In case you need to make a query of a query, CTEs come to your rescue by creating a temporary table. Similar to temporary functions, it also aims at breaking larger portions of work into smaller parts to make it less complex. Therefore, it modularises the codes. CTEs come in handy when you have several sub-queries or, even worse, sub queries of sub queries! You’ll learn about the WHERE clause, which will help you filter data. 

• Date and time manipulation: When getting into the intermediate to advanced level of SQL, you are required to know about the date and time manipulation. Some of the functions vital to learning more about this topic are, EXTRACT, DATE_TRUNC. DATEDIFF and DATE_ADD. The topic precisely trains you to curate simple months of DD-MM-YYYY from variable data. 

• Data pivoting using CASE WHEN: Implementing the CASE WHEN function is a very common task in SQL. Yet, the concept is so versatile that it is often considered an intermediate to an advanced topic. With the help of the CASE WHEN function, you can easily write and allocate tricky conditional statements to particular values or classes. The function also helps in data pivoting, which is equally helpful in case you have to perform row-column interchange in a data set. 

• Ranking:  Ranking rows and values is a very common and valuable skill. Companies often utilise functions such as ranking customers by their number of purchases or ranking regions based on sales. There are functions such as ROW_NUMBER(), DENSE_RANK() and RPW_NUMBER() that can be used for ranking. 

1. Running Totals: Knowing this skill often comes in handy if you are reporting or developing applications. Simplify the process by learning more about ROW_NUMBER() and LAG(). After that, you can learn about SUM() to calculate the running total. 

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Wrapping up

Projects create an active learning environment where the mind can think critically and employ inquiry-based methods to find solutions. While choosing your SQL project, you should typically go for a project in which you at least use database normalization techniques. These are design approaches that reduce the dependency and redundancy of data. With the above SQL project ideas, you are good to go!

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