Please help with workflow inspired SQL

Question

Hi everyone, I need some help with a piece of sql I need to create. It will be used in a workflow scenario and is therefore a bit hairy and has some limitations. So here goes..
I have 2 current tables that will be used in this query. The first is a table used as a supervisor cross reference, and the second will be used for signing authority, or approval authorization. In short...the first table will give you the supervisor for the particular employee or employee in the where clause. This tells us who to route to. The second table has the operators authority level. As an example.... 1, 2, 3, or 4. A 1 could signify that this supervisor can approve for up to $5,000, and a 4 could signify that this person can approve up to $250,000. thats the basic idea.
So what I need to do in ONE statement is get the requestor's supervisor, and then check his/hers authority level for level 1, 2, 3 or 4. The authority level needed will be passed into the query, so I will have that as well as the requestor. And here is the hard part...... If no rows are returned (the supervisor does not have authority to approve) I need the query to apply the same logic to the next supervisor. In other words, the supervisor's supervisor. Every requestor will have a supervisor. Every supervisor will also have a supervisor....so it goes until we get to the CEO. So the query needs to keep going until it finds a row matching the signing authority.
So the limitations are......this needs to happen in one SQL query, and this query can only return ONE field!
Here are some creates and inserts to give you something to work with. Been suffering with this one for a few days so your help is GREATLY appreciated.
Supervisor cross reference table
CREATE TABLE PS_ROLEXLATOPR (ROLEUSER VARCHAR2(30) DEFAULT ' ' NOT
NULL,
DESCR VARCHAR2(30) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
OPRID VARCHAR2(30) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
EMAILID VARCHAR2(70) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
FORMID VARCHAR2(70) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
WORKLIST_USER_SW VARCHAR2(1) DEFAULT 'Y' NOT NULL,
EMAIL_USER_SW VARCHAR2(1) DEFAULT 'Y' NOT NULL,
FORMS_USER_SW VARCHAR2(1) DEFAULT 'Y' NOT NULL,
EMPLID VARCHAR2(11) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
ROLEUSER_ALT VARCHAR2(30) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
ROLEUSER_SUPR VARCHAR2(30) DEFAULT ' ' NOT NULL,
EFFDT_FROM DATE,
EFFDT_TO DATE) TABLESPACE PTTBL STORAGE (INITIAL 40000 NEXT 100000
MAXEXTENTS UNLIMITED PCTINCREASE 0) PCTFREE 10 PCTUSED 80
INSERT INTO PS_ROLEXLATOPR
DESCR,
OPRID ,
EMAILID ,
FORMID ,
WORKLIST_USER_SW ,
EMAIL_USER_SW ,
FORMS_USER_SW ,
EMPLID ,
ROLEUSER_ALT ,
ROLEUSER_SUPR ,
EFFDT_FROM
VALUES
DESCR,
'ABC123',
'XYZ123',
Signing Authority table..
CREATE TABLE PS_ZZ_WF_AUTHORITY (OPRID VARCHAR2(30) NOT NULL,
EMPLID VARCHAR2(11) NOT NULL,
EMAILID VARCHAR2(70) NOT NULL,
ZZ_SIGN_AUTHORITY VARCHAR2(1) NOT NULL) TABLESPACE APLARGE STORAGE
(INITIAL 40000 NEXT 100000 MAXEXTENTS UNLIMITED PCTINCREASE 0)
PCTFREE 10 PCTUSED 80
insert into PS_ZZ_WF_AUTHORITY
OPRID,
EMPLID,
EMAILID,
ZZ_SIGN_AUTHORITY
Values
'XYZ123',
'Any_Email',
'1'
)

Answer 1

Hi,
Welcome to the forum!
Thanks for posting the CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements; that's very helpful!
Whenever you have a question, also post the results you want to get from the sample data your posted.
Always say what version of Oracle you're suing.
In the sample data you posted, I only see one row in each table. Does that really give a good picture of the problem? If the problem involves going up the chain of command 1, 2, 3 or more levels, then shouldn't you have a chain of at least 3 people to show the problem and test the results?
I think what you need is CONNECT BY Query , which works on a table with a parent-child relationship. Given a parent, you can find that ow's children, the children's children, their children, and so on, however many generations there are.
I don't think I can demonstrate this with your sample data, so I'll use the scott.emp table, whcih you should be able to query.
The emp table contains a hierarcy of employees, including this data:
NAME                 EMPNO        MGR        SAL JOB
KING                  7839                  5000 PRESIDENT
   JONES              7566       7839       2975 MANAGER
      SCOTT           7788       7566       3000 ANALYST
         ADAMS        7876       7788       1100 CLERK
      FORD            7902       7566       3000 ANALYST
         SMITH        7369       7902        800 CLERK
   BLAKE              7698       7839       2850 MANAGER
      ALLEN           7499       7698       1600 SALESMAN
      WARD            7521       7698       1250 SALESMAN
      MARTIN          7654       7698       1250 SALESMAN
      TURNER          7844       7698       1500 SALESMAN
      JAMES           7900       7698        950 CLERK
   CLARK              7782       7839       2450 MANAGER
      MILLER          7934       7782       1300 CLERKThis show, among other things, that the employee with ename='KING' (empno=7839) has no boss.
JONES (empno=7566) does have a boss (mgr=7839), namely KING.
SCOTT (empno=7788) has a bos (mgr=7566), who is JONES.
I got the results above using this CONNECT BY query:
SELECT     LPAD ( ' '
          , 3 * (LEVEL - 1)
          ) || ename          AS name
,     empno
,     mgr
,     sal
,     job
FROM     scott.emp
START WITH     mgr     IS NULL
CONNECT BY     mgr     = PRIOR empno
;This is an example of a Top-Down Query , where we start with a parent, then find its children, grandchildren, and so on.
In your probelm, you want to do a Bottom-Up Query ; given a child, you want to see if its parent has a certain level of authority. If not, you need to look at that parent's parent, and keep going until to either reach someone with the right qualifications, or you reach the end of the chain of command.
That's similar to this problem: given a set of employees in scott.emp (say, everyone with job='CLERK') we want to find their closest ancestor who has a sal of 3000 or more. Look at the data above: you can see that SMITH is a CLERK, and SMITH'S boss, FORD, has sal=3000, so we want a row of output that shows SMITH and FORD.
For a different example, looks at MILLER. MILLER's boss, CLARK, only has sal=2450, so we need to look at CLARK's boss, KING.
One way to do that in a CONNECT BY query is:
SELECT     CONNECT_BY_ROOT ename     AS subordinate
,     ename
,     LEVEL - 1          AS steps_apart
FROM     scott.emp
WHERE     CONNECT_BY_ISLEAF     = 1
START WITH     job       = 'CLERK'
CONNECT BY     empno       = PRIOR mgr
     AND     PRIOR sal < 3000
;Output:
SUBORDINAT ENAME      STEPS_APART
SMITH      FORD                 1
ADAMS      SCOTT                1
JAMES      KING                 2
MILLER     KING                 2You should be all set to write the query now.
Just kidding. I'll bet there's a lot of stuff in this message that's new to you. It's all documented in the SQL Language manual:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28286/index.htm
If you'd like help, post your version, a more complete set of sample data, and the results you want from that data.
Explain, with specific examples, how you get the results you posted from the data you posted.
Do as much of the query as you can, and post your code.