“Merge” style operation with literal values?

Question

I have a table containing a student-grade relationship:

Student   Grade   StartDate   EndDate
   1        1    09/01/2009    NULL
   2        2    09/01/2010         


        

Answer 1

I prefer the following, it is cleaner and easier to read and modify.

MERGE Definition.tdSection AS Target
USING
    (SELECT *
     FROM   ( VALUES
            ( 1, 1, 'Administrator', 1, GETDATE(), NULL, Current_User, GETDATE())
             ,( 2, 1, 'Admissions', 1, GETDATE(), NULL, Current_User, GETDATE())
             ,( 3, 1, 'BOM', 1, GETDATE(), NULL, Current_User, GETDATE())
             ,( 4, 1, 'CRC', 1, GETDATE(), NULL, Current_User, GETDATE())
             ,( 5, 1, 'ICM', 1, GETDATE(), NULL, Current_User, GETDATE())
             ,( 6, 1, 'System', 1, GETDATE(), NULL,Current_User, GETDATE())
             ,( 7, 1, 'Therapy', 1, GETDATE(), NULL, Current_User, GETDATE()) 
            )
            AS s (SectionId
                  ,BusinessProcessId
                  ,Description, Sequence
                  ,EffectiveStartDate
                  ,EffectiveEndDate
                  ,ModifiedBy
                  ,ModifiedDateTime)
     ) AS Source
ON Target.SectionId = Source.SectionId
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
    INSERT (SectionId
           ,BusinessProcessId
           ,Description
           ,Sequence
           ,EffectiveStartDate
           ,EffectiveEndDate
           ,ModifiedBy
           ,ModifiedDateTime
           )
    VALUES (Source.SectionId
           ,Source.BusinessProcessId
           ,Source.Description
           ,Source.Sequence
           ,Source.EffectiveStartDate
           ,Source.EffectiveEndDate
           ,Source.ModifiedBy
           ,Source.ModifiedDateTime
           );