Prioritizing counts using date

Question

last week I asked for some help with a query that acquired distinct counts from an aggregate table and removed any duplicates based on a priority ranking. Now I want to throw an additional conundrum into the puzzle.
What if two of the categories have "equal" ranking priority and if there are duplicates, decide priority by an additional factor (in this case the actual start date of the service).
Here is a snipit of the code John helped me with last week.
SELECT region_id, region_name, officegroupname, officegroupid,
SUM(basic_readjustment) basic_readjustment,
SUM(occupation_skills) occupation_skills,
SUM(on_the_job) on_the_job,
SUM(placement_assist) placement_assist,
SUM(other) other,
SUM(basic_readjustment + occupation_skills + on_the_job + placement_assist + other) total
FROM (SELECT region_id, region_name, officegroupname, officegroupid,
SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'C', 1, 0)) basic_readjustment,
SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'B', 1, 0)) occupation_skills,
SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'A', 1, 0)) on_the_job,
SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'D', 1, 0)) placement_assist,
SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'E', 1, 0)) other
FROM (SELECT program_enrollment_id, officegroupname, officegroupid, region_id, region_name,
MIN(DECODE(service_id, 369, 'A', 368, 'B', 144, 'C', 114, 'D', 'E')) service_id
As you can see, service_id '369' is prioritized higher than '368' What I want to do now is rank both of them equally and "IF" both exist, count only one based on which has the most recent 'actual_start_date'
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.... Mark

Answer 1

Mark:
I've got to stop posting partial code. It is too easy to foul things up, specially with a lot of nested selects.
Between my partial code, and your pasting, the predicates on wia_base_mv got moved way out of place. The corrected code (I hope) is below.
SELECT region_id, region_name, officegroupname, officegroupid,
       SUM(basic_readjustment) basic_readjustment,
       SUM(occupation_skills) occupation_skills,
       SUM(on_the_job) on_the_job,
       SUM(placement_assist) placement_assist,
       SUM(other) other,
       SUM(basic_readjustment + occupation_skills + on_the_job + placement_assist + other) total
FROM (SELECT region_id, region_name, officegroupname, officegroupid,
             SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'A', 1, 0)) on_the_job,
             SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'B', 1, 0)) occupation_skills,
             SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'C', 1, 0)) basic_readjustment,
             SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'D', 1, 0)) placement_assist,
             SUM(DECODE(service_id, 'E', 1, 0)) other
      FROM (SELECT program_enrollment_id, officegroupname, officegroupid,
                   region_id, region_name,
                   MIN(DECODE(service_id, 369, 'A', 368, 'B', 144, 'C', 114, 'D', 'E')) service_id
            FROM (SELECT program_enrollment_id, officegroupname, officegroupid,
                         region_id, region_name, service_id,
                         ROW_NUMBER () OVER (PARTITION BY program_enrollment_id,
                                                          officegroupname,
                                                          officegroupid, region_id,
                                                          region_name
                                             ORDER BY DECODE(service_id, 369, 'A', 368, 'A', 144, 'C', 114, 'D', 'E'),
                                                             actual_start_date DESC) rn
                  FROM wia_base_mv
                  WHERE region_id < 13 AND
                        program_value = 'VAL04_TAA' AND
                        actual_completion_date IS NULL)
            WHERE rn = 1
            GROUP BY program_enrollment_id, officegroupname, officegroupid,
                     region_id, region_name)
      GROUP BY program_enrollment_id, officegroupname,
               officegroupid, region_id, region_name
      UNION ALL
      SELECT r.region_id, r.region_name, og.officegroupname, og.officegroupid,
             0 basic_readjustment, 0 occupation_skills, 0 on_the_job,
             0 placement_assist, 0 other
      FROM officegroup og, regions r, office_data od
      WHERE r.region_id = od.region_id AND
            og.officeid = od.office_id)
GROUP BY region_id, region_name, officegroupname, officegroupid
ORDER BY region_id One thing I find really useful in trying to figure out code like this is to start with the innermost query (in this case, the select from wia_base_mv), then add the outer layers one by one until I get to the one with the error. This often helps clarify what is wrong. It also helps when trying to get a handle on what someone else's code is doing.
HTH
John