Question

OP’s original question title: Use a field from one query in a subquery

I am not all that experienced in writing queries in Access and I’m having some trouble.

I have a few tables. 1 for Products, 1 for Markets and 1 for Facts which combine the Markets and Products. I need to write a query that can join those together and for every instance of a specific market field (MF), I need to return the nth highest of a specific fact field (FF) (summed up per market/product) and which of a specific product field (PF) that fact value it is links to. Hope that makes sense.

Anyway, here is the query I have:

select market.MF2, product.PF10, sum(fact.FF3) as FF3
from mMarket market, mProduct product, mFact fact
where market.Item_ID = fact.Market_ID
and product.Item_ID = fact.Product_ID
and FF3 = 
(
  select min(FF3) from 
  (
    select TOP 2 FF3 from 
    (
      select market2.MF2, product2.PF10, sum(fact2.FF3) as FF3
      from mMarket market2, mProduct product2, mFact fact2
      where market2.Item_ID = fact2.Market_ID
      and product2.Item_ID = fact2.Product_ID
      and market2.MF2 = market.MF2
      group by market2.MF2, product2.PF10
      order by 3 DESC
    )
  )
)
group by market.MF2, product.PF10

The TOP 2 part is where to specify n easily.
The problem I am having is that when I run this in access, It prompts me to enter a value for market.MF2 (I presume this is referring to the instance of it in the subquery).
I was thinking that the code would grab that value from main query for each row but clearly its not doing that.

Tables below:

mMarket

Item_ID     MF2
---------------
1           64
2           28
3           73

mProduct

Item_ID     PF5        PF10
----------------------------
1           2221       Category1
2           6487       Category3
3           73234      Category2
4           76223      Category1
5           99342      Category2

mFact

Market_ID        Product_ID       FF3
--------------------------------------
1                1                1000
1                2                1500
1                3                500
1                4                1000
2                1                1500
2                3                1000
2                5                1500
3                1                1000
3                2                500
3                5                2000

What is wrong with the query? I can’t see it

Thank in advance

Expected Results:

If n was 1

MF2        PF10         FF3
----------------------------
64         Category1    2000
28         Category2    2500
73         Category2    2000

If n was 2

MF2        PF10         FF3
----------------------------
64         Category3    1500
28         Category1    1500
73         Category1    1000

Answer 1

Take a look at this reference please:

• SQLFIDDLE

Query Sum just by Market:

Results Sum just by Market:

MF2 ITEM_ID PRODUCT_ID  PF5     PF10                                        SUM(F.FF3)
28  2       5,1,3       99342   Category2,Category1,Category2               4000
64  1       3,4,1,2     73234   Category2,Category1,Category1,Category3     4000
73  3       1,2,5       2221    Category1,Category3,Category2               3500

Query Sum by Market, Category :

select m.mf2, p.pf10, p.pf5, 
group_concat(f.product_id)as prods, 
m.item_id , sum(f.ff3) as sff
from mmarket m
left join mfact f
on m.item_id = f.market_id
inner join mproduct p
on f.product_id = p.item_id
group by m.mf2, p.pf10
order by sff desc 
;

Results Sum by Market, Category :

MF2     PF10        PF5     PRODS   ITEM_ID     SFF
28      Category2   99342   5,3     2           2500
64      Category1   76223   4,1     1           2000
73      Category2   99342   5       3           2000
28      Category1   2221    1       2           1500
64      Category3   6487    2       1           1500
73      Category1   2221    1       3           1000
64      Category2   73234   3       1           500
73      Category3   6487    2       3           500

UPDATED ANSWER as per OP’s later comments

Query:

select x.*
from (
select m.mf2, p.pf10, sum(f.ff3) as sff
from mmarket m
left join mfact f
on m.item_id = f.market_id
inner join mproduct p
on f.product_id = p.item_id
group by m.mf2, p.pf10
  order by sff desc ) as x
limit 1
;

Results:

MF2     PF10          MSFF
28      Category2     2500

Based on OP’s expected results – updated to comply with MS ACCESS SQL

There are many ways to achieve this in MYSQL. However wanted to give OP the answer for MS ACCESS.

I suggest you save the above Results from ** Sum by Market, Category** query into a temp table or to a MS ACCESS Query. Then use that Query in your final Query.

• SQLFIDDLE

Query for Top 1st by Market by Category:

-- success final :) by Top 1st
select x.mf2, x.pf10, x.sff
from 
(select m.mf2, p.pf10, p.pf5, 
group_concat(f.product_id)as prods, 
m.item_id , sum(f.ff3) as sff
from mmarket m
left join mfact f
on m.item_id = f.market_id
inner join mproduct p
on f.product_id = p.item_id
group by m.mf2, p.pf10
order by sff desc) as x

where 

(select count(*)
 from
     (select m.mf2, p.pf10, p.pf5, 
      group_concat(f.product_id)as prods, 
      m.item_id , sum(f.ff3) as sff
      from mmarket m
      left join mfact f
      on m.item_id = f.market_id
      inner join mproduct p
      on f.product_id = p.item_id
      group by m.mf2, p.pf10
      order by sff desc) as y

where y.sff >= x.sff
and y.mf2 = x.mf2) =1 //-- Top 3rd, 2nd, 1st
order by x.sff desc
;

Results for Top 1st Market by Category:

MF2     PF10    SFF
28  Category2   2500
64  Category1   2000
73  Category2   2000

Results for Top 2nd Market by Category:

MF2     PF10    SFF
28  Category1   1500
64  Category3   1500
73  Category1   1000

Results for Top 3rd Market by Category:

MF2     PF10    SFF
64  Category2   500
73  Category3   500