Insert Data into Tables in SQL Server using INSERT Statement

The INSERT INTO statement is used to insert single or multiple records into a table in the SQL Server database.

Syntax:

INSERT INTO table_name(column_name1, column_name2...) VALUES(column1_value, column2_value...);

Here, we will insert data into the following Employee table which we created in the Create Table chapter.

The following INSERT INTO statement will insert a single row in all columns of the above Employee table in the SQL Server database.

INSERT INTO Employee(FirstName, LastName, EMail, Phone, HireDate, Salary)
VALUES('John','King','[email protected]','123.123.0000','01-01-2015', 33000);

Note that EmployeeId column is an identity column, so the values will be auto-generated on each insert statement. So, EmployeeId column is not included in the above insert statement.

To see the inserted data, execute the Select * from Employee; query in the query editor, as shown below.

Insert Values to All Columns

To insert values to all columns of a table, you don't need to specify column names with the table name. Specify the values for each column in a sequence as they appear in the table, as shown below.

INSERT INTO Employee
VALUES('Neena','Kochhar','[email protected]','123.000.000','05-12-2018',17000);

Insert Values to Specific Columns

To insert data into specific columns, specify the column names in the parenthesis. Make sure other columns allow null values; otherwise, an error will be raise.

The following will insert data in FirstName, and LastName columns only.

INSERT INTO Employee 
VALUES 
('Kevin','Weiss','[email protected]','123.123.12','08-10-2019',17000),
('Lex','De Haan','[email protected]','123.123.13','05-05-2019',15000),
('Laura','Bissot','[email protected]','123.123.15','02-08-2019',40000);

To insert multiple records into specific columns, specify the column names in the parenthesis, as shown below.

INSERT INTO Employee(FirstName, LastName) 
VALUES 
('Kevin','Weiss'),
('Lex','De Haan'),
('Laura','Bissot');

Now, execute the Select * from Employee query will display the following result.