22-25 April 2026 
Magnus Ahlkvist
tsql.nu
20 year SQL Server professional with a need for speed.
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SQLBits 2026
Everything you need to know about Temporal Tables
Temporal tables in SQL Server are used to save versions of data rows in a table. The built-in functionality replaces complicated application code for versioning and the automated timestamps can be used to load SCD type 2 dimensions in a warehouse.
Temporal Tables (or system versioned tables) were introduced in SQL Server 2016 as a way to automatically version rows within a table.
In this session I will present:
- Create a new table which is system versioned
- Start system versioning on existing tables.
- Transform a main/history-table pair from application versioned to system versioned.
- How to query using the SYSTEM TIME AS OF extensions to SELECT queires.
- How to use the Row Start and Row End attributes for delta loads into a data warehouse.
- How to load Type 2 Slowly Changing Dimensions using system versioned tables
- Performance considerations for your history table.
In this session I will present:
- Create a new table which is system versioned
- Start system versioning on existing tables.
- Transform a main/history-table pair from application versioned to system versioned.
- How to query using the SYSTEM TIME AS OF extensions to SELECT queires.
- How to use the Row Start and Row End attributes for delta loads into a data warehouse.
- How to load Type 2 Slowly Changing Dimensions using system versioned tables
- Performance considerations for your history table.