Foamee Beer or Coffee for some help

Question

Hi,
I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction on
writing an SQL query. Sorry if this gets a little long but I want
to provide enough info to get the help I need.
Here's the skinny:
I've written a CRM system which allow users to maintain their
list of clients (names & mailing address etc.) Every 2 months
the users (Consultants) can login and order/send their customers
(Customers) personalized direct mail brochures where the brochures
get a personal message printed on them from the sender.
I've got a MySQL database that has 4 tables.
Table 1: Consultants - the registered users
Table 2: Customers - the clients of the registered users
Table 3: Messages
Table 4: ConsultantOrders
The problem is that a Consultant can place more than one
Order during each cycle.
So what I want to be able to do is query the DB, find all
consultants who have placed an order - but only pull THE MOST
RECENT Order as the newOrder - and then extract all the
Consultants' Clients to compile a master mailing file.
What I do right now is first run a query to find which
consultants have more than one order in the current cycle. Then I
manually go in and delete the duplicate orders. Once that's done I
then run this query:
SELECT DISTINCT
`ConsultantOrders`.`ConsultantID`,
`ConsultantOrders`.`OrderID`,
`Consultants`.`ConsultantID`,
`Consultants`.`FirstName`,
`Consultants`.`LastName`,
`Consultants`.`Address1`,
`Consultants`.`Address2`,
`Consultants`.`City`,
`Consultants`.`State`,
`Consultants`.`Zip`,
`Consultants`.`Phone`,
`Consultants`.`SecondaryPhone`,
`Consultants`.`EmailAddress`,
`Consultants`.`Website`,
`Consultants`.`MessageID`,
`Consultants`.`Allowed`,
`Customers`.`FirstName`,
`Customers`.`LastName`,
`Customers`.`Address1`,
`Customers`.`Address2`,
`Customers`.`City`,
`Customers`.`State`,
`Customers`.`Zip`,
`Customers`.`Language`,
`Customers`.`Mail`,
`Customers`.`ConsultantID`,
`Messages`.`MessageID`,
`Messages`.`Message`
FROM
`ConsultantOrders` ,
`Consultants`
Inner Join `Customers` ON '' = '' ,
`Messages`
WHERE
`Consultants`.`ConsultantID` =
`ConsultantOrders`.`ConsultantID` AND
`Customers`.`ConsultantID` =
`ConsultantOrders`.`ConsultantID` AND
`Customers`.`Mail` = '1' AND
`Consultants`.`MessageID` = `Messages`.`MessageID` AND
`Customers`.`Status` = '1' AND
`Consultants`.`Allowed` = '1' AND
`ConsultantOrders`.`OrderID` > 2512
So can someone tell me how I'd write a direct query to not
have to manually delete the duplicate orders?
I think I need to be using a (Max) function but for the life
of me I can't seem to get it to work right.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Beer or Coffee via
foamee.com as a reward?
Cheers,
Eric

Answer 1

BRILLIANT!!
That worked like a charm. I just had to add an 'ON' to the
first INNER JOIN line and it worked perfectly. Thanks a bunch.
I'll send you a private message as well for a 'thank you'
gift.
Cheers,
Eric