9 Smartsheet SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)
At Smartsheet, SQL is used across the company for extracting and analyzing data from the company's vast customer databases, and generating insights from product analytics data. That's the reason behind why Smartsheet frequently asks SQL problems during interviews for Data Analytics, Data Science, and Data Engineering jobs.
As such, to help you prepare for the Smartsheet SQL interview, this blog covers 9 Smartsheet SQL interview questions – can you solve them?
9 Smartsheet SQL Interview Questions
SQL Question 1: Identify Power Users of SmartSheet
SmartSheet is a software application that allows teams to collaborate on projects, track progress, and manage work. As an interviewer, your task is to identify the power users of SmartSheet. Power users are essentially customers who use a particular feature or set of features very frequently, perhaps making them more experienced or knowledgeable in dealing with the tool. In SmartSheet's case, we will define power users as users who create ten or more distinct projects in a month.
Given two tables, and , the table holds basic user data such as and , and the table holds information about projects created by the users, including the , (which directly maps to the table), and .
Example Input:
| user_id | user_name |
|---|---|
| 6654 | John Doe |
| 8212 | Jane Smith |
| 5116 | Jim Brown |
| 9082 | Sarah Connor |
Example Input:
| project_id | user_id | creation_date |
|---|---|---|
| 3601 | 6654 | 2022-05-01 |
| 4202 | 8212 | 2022-05-02 |
| 5303 | 6654 | 2022-05-03 |
| 2304 | 6654 | 2022-05-04 |
| 5425 | 8212 | 2022-05-05 |
| 3316 | 6654 | 2022-05-06 |
| 3657 | 8212 | 2022-05-08 |
| 6208 | 6654 | 2022-05-09 |
The question: Write a SQL query to identify the power users for the month of May 2022.
Answer:
This query joins the two tables on the common field, then filters the table to only include data from May 2022. It then groups the data by (from the table) while counting the number of projects each user has created in the specified period. The clause then filters out results where the count is less than 10, thereby identifying the power users for May 2022.
To work on another SQL customer analytics question where you can solve it right in the browser and have your SQL code instantly graded, try this Walmart SQL Interview Question:
SQL Question 2: Analyze User Activity in Smartsheet
As a Data Analyst at Smartsheet, a leading cloud-based platform for work execution, you need to analyze user activity data collected. Specifically, you are asked to find the number of unique users who used Smartsheet each day, and then rank these days by the sum of unique users over the current day and the 6 prior days (i.e., a rolling 7-day window). Days without user activity should be omitted.
Assume the following example user activity data in Smartsheet:
Example Input:
| activity_date | user_id |
|---|---|
| 2022-06-01 | 1 |
| 2022-06-01 | 2 |
| 2022-06-02 | 2 |
| 2022-06-03 | 3 |
| 2022-06-04 | 1 |
| 2022-06-04 | 2 |
| 2022-06-05 | 2 |
| 2022-06-05 | 3 |
| 2022-06-06 | 1 |
| 2022-06-07 | 2 |
| 2022-06-07 | 3 |
Example Output:
| activity_date | unique_users | rank_by_rolling_7day_users |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-06-01 | 2 | 1 |
| 2022-06-02 | 1 | 2 |
| 2022-06-03 | 1 | 3 |
| 2022-06-04 | 2 | 4 |
| 2022-06-05 | 2 | 5 |
| 2022-06-06 | 1 | 6 |
| 2022-06-07 | 2 | 7 |
Answer:
In this question, a common table expression (CTE) is first used to calculate daily unique users. Then, another CTE is used to calculate the rolling 7-day total of unique users. In the final SELECT statement, RANK() window function is applied to these days based on this rolling 7-day total in descending order.
Pro Tip: Window functions are a frequent SQL interview topic, so practice every window function problem on DataLemur
SQL Question 3: How are and similar, and how are they different?
Both the and window functions are used to access a row at a specific offset from the current row.
However, the function retrieves a value from a row that follows the current row, whereas the function retrieves a value from a row that precedes the current row.
Often, the offset for both functions is 1, which gives access to the immediately following/preceding row. Here's a SQL query example:
SQL Question 4: Calculate monthly average subscription upgrades for each subscription type
Given a table "subscriptions", where each row represents an event of a user's new subscription or an upgrade to their existing subscription. Write an SQL query to identify the average number of subscription upgrades per month for each type of subscription.
Example Input:
| subscription_id | user_id | upgrade_date | subscription_type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 123 | 06/08/2019 | Premium |
| 200 | 265 | 06/10/2019 | Standard |
| 300 | 123 | 06/15/2019 | Premium |
| 400 | 192 | 06/17/2019 | Standard |
| 500 | 981 | 07/05/2019 | Premium |
| 600 | 192 | 07/06/2019 | Standard |
| 700 | 123 | 07/07/2019 | Premium |
| 800 | 362 | 08/18/2020 | Premium |
Answer:
In PostgreSQL:
This SQL query firstly filters out rows with users who had any subscriptions upgraded before the current month. Then it extracts the upgrade month and subscription type for grouping. In the SELECT clause, it also calculates the count of upgrades which is divided by the range of years present in the data for each group. The query results in the monthly average number of subscription upgrades for each subscription type.
SQL Question 5: Can you explain the distinction between a left and right join?
A join in SQL combines rows from two or more tables based on a shared column or set of columns. To demonstrate the difference between a and , say you had a table of Smartsheet orders and Smartsheet customers.
LEFT JOIN: A retrieves all rows from the left table (in this case, the Orders table) and any matching rows from the right table (the Customers table). If there is no match in the right table, NULL values will be returned for the right table's columns.
RIGHT JOIN: A retrieves all rows from the right table (in this case, the Customers table) and any matching rows from the left table (the Orders table). If there is no match in the left table, NULL values will be returned for the left table's columns.
SQL Question 6: Retrieve Customer Records with Specific Domain
You are working for Smartsheet and your task is to filter down customer records from the database using their email addresses. Your manager wants to focus marketing efforts on customers who are using business email addresses from the domain "@business.com". Use the SQL keyword LIKE to find all records of customers who have an email with "@business.com" in it.
Smartsheet wants to know the customer_id, name, and email of these customers.
Example Input:
| customer_id | name | |
|---|---|---|
| 101 | John Smith | smith@gmail.com |
| 102 | Peter Johnson | peterj@business.com |
| 103 | Kim Williams | kimwi@gmail.com |
| 104 | Sara Davis | sara.davis@business.com |
| 105 | Robert Miller | rmiller@gmail.com |
Example Output:
| customer_id | name | |
|---|---|---|
| 102 | Peter Johnson | peterj@business.com |
| 104 | Sara Davis | sara.davis@business.com |
Answer:
The SQL query to fulfil the given requirement would be -
Explanation of Answer:
This query selects the 'customer_id', 'name', and 'email' fields from the 'Customers' table. It then filters these records to only include those where the 'email' field contains the string '@business.com'. The '%' character in the LIKE clause allows for any characters to precede or follow the specified string.
As a result, all customer records with an email address from the "@business.com" domain are returned.
SQL Question 7: What do stored procedures do, and when would you use one?
Stored procedures are a lot like functions in programming. They're used to encapsulate and organize business logic into one unit of code, and they can accept multiple input parameters and return multiple output values.
For a concrete example, suppose you were a Data Scientist on the Marketing Analytics team at Smartsheet. A task you would encounter freqently would be to calculate the conversion rate for Smartsheet's ads over a certain time period, for which you would write the following stored procedure:
To use this conversion rate stored procedure, you could call it like this:
SQL Question 8: Analyze Customer Behavior and Product Usage
Given two tables, and , write a SQL query to analyze customer usage patterns. The table contains information about each customer like , and . The table contains information about each usage instance like , , , and .
Here are examples of how the and tables might look like:
Example Input:
| customer_id | signup_date | plan_type |
|---|---|---|
| 101 | 2021-07-01 | Premium |
| 102 | 2021-08-15 | Basic |
| 103 | 2021-09-20 | Pro |
| 104 | 2021-10-10 | Pro |
Example Input:
| usage_id | customer_id | product_id | usage_date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 101 | 1 | 2022-01-01 |
| 2 | 101 | 2 | 2022-01-10 |
| 3 | 102 | 1 | 2022-01-20 |
| 4 | 103 | 2 | 2022-02-01 |
| 5 | 101 | 1 | 2022-02-02 |
| 6 | 104 | 1 | 2022-02-10 |
| 7 | 102 | 2 | 2022-02-20 |
| 8 | 101 | 1 | 2022-02-21 |
| 9 | 103 | 2 | 2022-03-01 |
Calculate the monthly usage count for each customer broken down by . Include only customers who signed up before 2022 and rank the results per month and product based on usage count.
Answer:
In PostgreSQL, you could solve this with a query like the following:
This query first joins the and tables on . It then groups the data by the month of , , and to calculate the usage count. The function is used to rank the usage count within each month and product. Only customers who have signed up before 2022 are included in the result.
Because joins come up routinely during SQL interviews, practice this Spotify JOIN SQL question:
SQL Question 9: Count of Active Users in the Last Seven Days
Suppose you're given a table that logs user activity on the Smartsheet platform. Each time a user logs in to the platform, a record is created in the table. Write a SQL query to count the number of distinct active users who logged in to the platform in the last seven days, excluding today.
Example Input:
| activity_id | user_id | activity_date | action_type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 205 | 4501 | 08/10/2022 11:00:00 | login |
| 507 | 3894 | 08/14/2022 09:50:00 | login |
| 665 | 6002 | 08/17/2022 06:30:00 | login |
| 702 | 4501 | 08/18/2022 08:10:00 | login |
| 888 | 6002 | 08/18/2022 22:00:00 | logout |
| 912 | 7103 | 08/19/2022 13:15:00 | login |
Answer:
In PostgreSQL, you can use the function to get today's date. Subtracting 7 days from that gives you the starting date of the date-interval. Then, you can count the distinct s within this date range. Here's how you can write the query:
The above query provides the count of distinct users who have at least one login record in the user_activity table in the past seven days, excluding today.
How To Prepare for the Smartsheet SQL Interview
The best way to prepare for a Smartsheet SQL interview is to practice, practice, practice.
Besides solving the earlier Smartsheet SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ SQL Interview Questions on DataLemur which come from companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.
Each problem on DataLemur has multiple hints, fully explained answers along with a discussion board to see how others solved it and crucially, there's an interactive coding environment so you can instantly run your query and have it checked.
To prep for the Smartsheet SQL interview you can also be a great idea to practice SQL problems from other tech companies like:
In case your SQL foundations are weak, don't worry about going right into solving questions – refresh your SQL knowledge with this SQL tutorial for Data Scientists & Analysts.
This tutorial covers topics including filtering on multiple conditions using AND/OR/NOT and rank window functions – both of these show up frequently in SQL job interviews at Smartsheet.
Smartsheet Data Science Interview Tips
What Do Smartsheet Data Science Interviews Cover?
In addition to SQL interview questions, the other question categories covered in the Smartsheet Data Science Interview are:
- Statistics and Probability Questions
- Python or R Coding Questions
- Product Analytics Questions
- Machine Learning Questions
- Behavioral & Resume-Based Questions
How To Prepare for Smartsheet Data Science Interviews?
The best way to prepare for Smartsheet Data Science interviews is by reading Ace the Data Science Interview. The book's got:
- 201 Interview Questions from tech companies like Google & Microsoft
- A Refresher on Product Analytics, SQL & ML
- Great Reviews (900+ reviews, 4.5-star rating)