Linked Table Query Returning Incorrect Results

2 Comments

We had this annoying problem: a simple query in Access to a linked table (using ODBC and MS SQL server) returned incorrect results, though the same query returned correct results in MS SQL server. By incorrect I mean the field values were different, so rather than returning AZ, the query returned BZ (some other value in that field).

We thought that it was a table size issue, may be the driver could not handle huge data. However, the problem was with the “unique record identifier” while linking the table, as JM reported here. I did not have this problem any longer when I did not select any fields for the unique record identifier while linking the table.

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About the Author

A co-author of Data Science for Fundraising, an award winning keynote speaker, Ashutosh R. Nandeshwar is one of the few analytics professionals in the higher education industry who has developed analytical solutions for all stages of the student life cycle (from recruitment to giving). He enjoys speaking about the power of data, as well as ranting about data professionals who chase after “interesting” things. He earned his PhD/MS from West Virginia University and his BEng from Nagpur University, all in industrial engineering. Currently, he is leading the data science, reporting, and prospect development efforts at the University of Southern California.

  • Barry says:
    December 21, 2016 at 11:51 am

    Big thanks! I’m upsizing an Access app to SQL Server. I had imported the tables and the were all the same, but returning 0s where integers were required! No idea why. This fixed it.

    Thanks!

  • n.ashutosh says:
    December 22, 2016 at 9:22 am

    I’m glad this solution helped you, Barry.

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