Teradata SQL Assistant – Tips & Settings for better work

There are various options available in TERADATA SQL Assistant which may make your life lot more comfortable. The only thing which stops you is lack of knowledge how these options can help. Below are few tips & tricks for Teradata SQL Assistant:
a) EXPLORER TREE: Explorer Tree is very useful and least used by most of the people working on Teradata SQL Assistant. I prefer having Explorer Tree enable all the time as it can save huge number of man hours. To enable EXPLORER TREE, go to
VIEW –> EXPLORER TREE

Once it is enabled, you can see it on left pane. Now Right Click on the Explorer Tree and Select ADD option. Enter the name of DATABASE and Click on OK. Once pressed OK, that DATABASE is added to EXPLORER TREE. You can now explore all the objects in that database. Right Click on the object and you can find several options which will help you in checking the Definition of the object; Browse option will give you SELECT query to retrieve all the records from the table. In the new version of Teradata SQL Assistant, more options are available which can help in generating various queries in Query Window.
b) There are few options (TOOLS–>OPTIONS) available in the Teradata SQL Assistant which you should consider while using it:
i) General: Close Answerset windows before submitting a new query: This will close the answerset window before executing new query. So if you wish to have multiple Answerset window , make sure that this option is uncheck.
ii) General: Display the string for NULL data fields: Set the String you want to show in the ANSWERSET for columns values which are NULL. It can be ? or you can mention your custom string like NULL etc.
iii) General: Display Dates in format: Teradata SQL Assistant displays date columns in the format you select here. So in Table as Data Format can be different however while displaying it , TSA may change the format as the one specified here.
iv) Query: Submit only the selected query text when highlighted: This will make sure that only SQL which you select is executed else all the SQL queries starting from the top will be executed.
v) Also, you can enable HISTORY; go to VIEW–> Show History. You can select the SQL Query from the history window and you don’t have to write it again. It will save time. Also you can refer to History to check result of any previously executed query.
vi) There are few keyboard shortcuts which will help in better and faster completion of work:
F2 : It will open QUERY BUILDER, with SYNTAX for all SQL Queries.
F5 : Execute SQL Query
F6 : Explain Plan for SQL Query
F9 : Execute SQL Queries in Parallel
F10 : Abort SQL Query
F11 : Display Last Error encountered.
Ctrl + N : New SQL Query Window
Ctrl + Q : FORMAT SQL Query
Ctrl + U : Convert to UPPERCASE
Ctrl + H : Find & Replace