before I go there, I want to clarify. The parameter @benches is called out in the left query as well as the right.

I tried this:

created tvf

CREATE FUNCTION GetBench (@benches varchar(20))

RETURNS TABLE

AS RETURN

SELECT r.createdate

FROM Sandbox.dbo.Runs r

INNER JOIN Sandbox.dbo.runs_machines rm ON rm.runid = r.runid

INNER JOIN Sandbox.dbo.Machines m ON m.machineid = rm.machineid

WHERE m.NAME LIKE (@benches + '[0-9][0-9][0-9]')

AND r.createdate > dateadd(M, - 3, getdate());

incorporated in APPLY

DECLARE @benches TABLE (Bench varchar(20));

INSERT @benches

values

('LabC1'),

('LabC2'),

('LabC3'),

('LabC4');

INSERT INTO RunsByBench

SELECT Bench AS BenchName,

COUNT(CreateDate) AS NumberOfRunsOnBench,

MAX(CreateDate) AS LastRun

FROM @benches

OUTER APPLY

GetBench (@benches)

group by Bench;

select * from RunsByBench;

got error:

Msg 206, Level 16, State 2, Line 10

Operand type clash: table is incompatible with varchar

So, you say Jeff Moden's splitter article contains the answer, yes? I'm not ready for that article unless it addresses this problem. I currently can make no sense of it and it's long. If you can provide more pointed guidance to whether I should be able to encapsulate the right query into TVF, given that it relies on the same variable as the left side of query, I would appreciate.