I'd like a query that returns the first two sales for EACH salesperson ordered by date from a main sales table. Each person may have made many sales but I just want the first n when ordered by date.

E.g.

salesperson_id, salesperson_name, sale_id, saledate
1,Tim,1,2011-01-01
1,Tim,2,2011-01-02
3,Fred,1,2011-05-01
3,Fred,2,2011-05-01
4,Julie,1,2011-05-10
4,Julie,2,2011-05-10

asked 06 Dec '11, 15:00

TimC's gravatar image

TimC
1515610
accept rate: 0%

edited 07 Dec '11, 03:37

Volker%20Barth's gravatar image

Volker Barth
39.8k358546815


permanent link

answered 06 Dec '11, 15:06

Breck%20Carter's gravatar image

Breck Carter
32.5k5407241050
accept rate: 20%

Thanks Breck, I've used Rank in other reports but find it can return more records than required when multiple results have the same value. In this instance, I require 2 for each sales person. No more.

(06 Dec '11, 16:00) TimC
Replies hidden

IMHO, given Breck's sample, that would mean that a single sales person has more than 2 sales on the same date - how are you going to treat that?

If this doesn't occur in your data, then I wouldn't expect problems with RANK() - as it should be used with a partition on each sales person...

BTW, ROWNUMBER() should resolve "ties".

(06 Dec '11, 16:13) Volker Barth
1

That's what the WHERE clause is for, in your case WHERE ranked.entry_rank <= 2.

(06 Dec '11, 16:14) Breck Carter

ROW_NUMBER() resolved it.

Top answer by Breck and Volker. Many thanks.

(06 Dec '11, 17:18) TimC
Your answer
toggle preview

Follow this question

By Email:

Once you sign in you will be able to subscribe for any updates here

By RSS:

Answers

Answers and Comments

Markdown Basics

  • *italic* or _italic_
  • **bold** or __bold__
  • link:[text](http://url.com/ "title")
  • image?![alt text](/path/img.jpg "title")
  • numbered list: 1. Foo 2. Bar
  • to add a line break simply add two spaces to where you would like the new line to be.
  • basic HTML tags are also supported

Question tags:

×68
×19

question asked: 06 Dec '11, 15:00

question was seen: 2,056 times

last updated: 07 Dec '11, 03:37