Then use a function and encode the bizarre logic into it. Or create a permanent table in the database with the letter field and a numeric sort order field, then...

Again, not the most performant thing in the work but a scalar function that takes your value as a parameter and returns a real number. This is especially useful if...

The NullIf thing is just fabulous!! Saved a lot of pain 😀

Only in IT could being a decent human being be described as "soft skills" 😉

All depends on how many rows you have in each table, which columns are indexed etc - i agree with previous post - not using INNER JOIN won't be helping

Sometimes...

Most projects fail because they have time scales that are too long. The importance of early delivery is underestimated and the larger consultancy gain from continually tweeking specifications, endless meetings...

We manage a system where there are thousands of reads for every write operation so we use clustered indexes on the keys used to do the majority of joins (not...

Sorry,

having written this it suddenly occurred to me that it might be the settings in action when the SP was created that counted to by doing :

SET ANSI_NULLS...

p.s. the same update is fine if I run it in Management Studio just as a script - i.e. not in a stored procedure 😀

I agree with the previous poster - I'm primarily a programmer who also has to do a lot of DBA stuff because we do pretty much anything and everything. I've...

By "up to the second" I just meant that the reports are almost always based on data just saved - i.e. the transaction is complete before the report is run...

About read-only report database - already underway - as you say very obvious - just thought there might be a quick interim fix. A large number of the reports do...

DCPeterson,

I'm having a shedload of issues around locking up of the database when large reports are running on the system - they seem to be causing processes to wait...

Scorpion,

you state crystal is great with resources but we are experiencing similar problems on a larger scale - i.e many reports are running simultaneously all of which are locked...