One thing I noticed is that you're not setting @TableHead to anything. So you're concatenating string variables where one of them is NULL:

NULL + 'SomeString' = NULL

Going back to your original statement, if both columns are NOT NULL and CONVERTed to strings then you should be able to concatenate them.

USE tempdb;

DECLARE @tmp TABLE (Date1 DATETIME, Date2...

when t1.[PROCEDURE] <> t2.CATEGORY and CAST(T1.[Delivery Date] AS DATE) = CAST(T2.[TIME] AS DATE)

then CAST(T1.entrytime AS VARCHAR)+' -&- ' +CAST(T2.[TIME] AS VARCHAR)

Looks like you're comparing T1.[Delivery Date] to T2.[TIME] in the...

Sounds like PIVOT is what you're looking for

TechNet link: Using PIVOT and UNPIVOT

OK, threw enough crap at the wall I finally got something to stick: drop and recreate linked server using SQLNCLI11 driver instead of SQLNCLI10.

However, would still like to know why...

OK, it works if I wrap it in a distributed transaction. Is there something new to 2012 I'm missing that would let me configure this?

This works:

BEGIN DISTRIBUTED TRAN;

SELECT SomeColumn

FROM ...

That role didn't/doesn't exist since XA transactions aren't enabled on either server. Is this something that needs to enabled in 2012 which...

You might try reworking/tuning your DELETE statement.

Decent article on NOT IN alternatives: Should I use NOT IN, OUTER APPLY, LEFT OUTER JOIN, EXCEPT, or NOT EXISTS?

YMMV but I'd also...

Using Jun 1 and Jun 8 as your dates, DATEDIFF would meet 7 day criteria but includes weekends. Something like this might work?

DECLARE @StartDate DATE = '20150601'

,@EndDate DATE = '20150608'

SELECT...

This is more dynamic (and includes run time). Depending on your requirements, you might consider changing to use outer joins on sysjobhistory subqueries to catch any jobs which haven't processed...

Couldn't find a great link but I've heard it referred to as "chained CTEs" before

;With mstrTable(ItemNo, Sales)

as (

Query1

Union All

Query2

)

, mstrTable_2 (RowNo, ItemNo, Sales )

AS (

Select Row_Number () Over(Partition by ItemNo...

Drop and recreate the UDF?

Worked out an example that I believe mimics your scenario...would appear that the columns that satisfy * get "saved" to sys.columns when UDF created.

USE tempdb;

CREATE TABLE...

Fair enough but it did get me past my mental block. Plus I still have to implement it then go through unit and load testing before I'd ever release it...

Thanks Luis! That seems to solve my issue!

Thanks for responding Keith and sorry I failed to include the DELETE case. My test scripts are evidently no better than my MERGE statements today.

The code (now w/ SomeBId 2...