The aggregate calculations you can perform on a column depend on the type of data in the column. You can perform functions only on numeric data, that enable a mathematical calculation, such as SUM and AVERAGE.

The most common aggregate functions used for string data are COUNT and COUNT VALUE. COUNT returns the number of values in a column, including duplicate values. COUNT VALUE returns the number of distinct values in the column. You can use COUNT VALUE, for example, on a customer name column to get a count of the number of customers.

For date‑and‑time data, you can use the MIN and MAX functions to get the earliest and the latest date, respectively, from an order date column.

For a description of the aggregate functions available, see Functions and operators.