Question

NOTE: In hindsight, I realize this may seem like a stupid question, but I really did research it quite a bit before posting here. It was just one of those “right-under-your-nose” kind of answers, ugh!

I have tried to combine multiple simple lookup tables into one as I’ve been told is common practice. I have combined a table containing Statuses and one containing Priority levels as follows:

StatusPriority( ID, Name )
Projects( ID, ProjectName, StatusID, PriorityID ) --Master table

The values for ID between 1-10 represent my statuses while the values for ID between 11-20 represent the priority levels. If I were to split these into two table they would be:

Status( ID, StatusName )
Priority( ID, PriorityName )

GOAL

What I want to do is query for these values into two different columns in the result set with joins to a master table called “Projects.” I tried the following query, but it doesn’t work:

select ProjectName, Name as Status, Name as Priority
    from Projects p left outer join
    StatusPriority st on p.StatusID = st.Name left outer join
    StatusPriority pr on p.PriorityID = pr.Name

SAMPLE RESULTS

    ProjectName         |  Status       |  Priority
    --------------------|---------------|-----------
    Pick Blueberries    |  on hold      |  medium
    Remodel bathroom    |  in progress  |  low
    Plant garden        |  in progress  |  high

Answer 1

You’re criteria for the joins looks wrong, as p.StatusID I can’t imagine would be equal to st.Name. secondly you need to use your table aliases on the select list:

select ProjectName, st.Name as StatusName, pr.Name as PriorityName
    from Projects p 
    left join StatusPriority st on p.StatusID = st.ID 
    left join StatusPriority pr on p.PriorityID = pr.ID