Question

I have a SQL Query which I am trying to write and am now a bit stuck on how to write the order by clause.

Basically the table I am selecting from has items with a severity value. I want to select these items and order them so that the Severity column is ordered Severity 1-4 then 0 and the log date is descending for each.

Severity 1 is highest 4 is lowest and 0 respresents an unassigned severity, I need to display these items Highest severity, oldest item first, lowest severity, newest item last.

My query so far:

SELECT 
        [TicketID],
        [type],
        [Product],
        [Description],
        [LoggedBy],
        [LogDate],
        [Department],
        [AssignedTo],
        [Severity],
        [Status],
        [LastUpdatedBy],
        [LastUpdatedDate]
    FROM 
        SupportTicketsTbl 
    WHERE 
        TicketID NOT IN
        (
            SELECT 
                tck.ticketID  
            FROM 
                SupportTicketsTbl tck
            JOIN
                tblTicketsInEvents tie
            ON
                tck.TicketID = tie.ticketID 
            JOIN
                tblSupportEvent ev
            ON
                tie.eventID = ev.id 
            where 
                ev.type = 1
        )
    AND
        Status <> 'Complete'

I guess the easiest way is to create a table variable and select all the Items that are not 0 into it in the order I want, then select all the 0 items into my table variable, and finally just select everything back out of the table variable, but this seems a bit messy so im wondering if there is a more elegant solution?

Thanks

Answer 1

Since you didn’t like the UNION answer, and I’m not sure if UNION is guaranteed to preserve order…

ORDER BY CASE WHEN severity = 0 THEN 999 ELSE Severity END, date