this works, have to cast request as it is text datatype.

select title,firstname,surname,required_date,address1,birth_date, cast(request as varchar(200)) ,home_phone,req_id,

user_name,event_number,acc_number,nhi, count(*) as total from vrequest

where req_id = '324'

group by title,firstname,surname,required_date,address1,birth_date,cast(request as varchar(200)),

home_phone,req_id,user_name,event_number,acc_number,nhi

None have, apart from the dates which are of datatype date all other fields are varchar.

this query runs on sql server 2005 to a linked table on an oracle instance.

Thanks, tried that...

select title,firstname,surname,required_date,address1,birth_date,request,home_phone,req_id,

user_name,event_number,acc_number,nhi, count(*) as total from vrequest

group by title,firstname,surname,required_date,address1,birth_date,request,home_phone,req_id,user_name,event_number,acc_number,nhi

and got the following error msg..

Msg 306, Level 16, State 2, Line 1

The text, ntext, and image...

Still get the same error

sorry that was paste error. firstname is in group by still get error msg

select

title,firstname,surname,required_date,address1