The Problem (Q-score 3, ranked #36th of 67 in the Access VBA archive)
The scenario as originally posted in 2012
I have a table “tbl” which looks like this:
prod | cust | qty
p1 | c1 | 5
p1 | c2 | 10
p2 | c1 | 2
p3 | c2 | 8
What I need is a distinct list of product and customer pairs but only the first customer if the product is sold to more than one customer. In order words the results need to look like this:
prod | cust
p1 | c1
p2 | c1
p3 | c2
I’ve tried this every which way I can think of but I can’t quite get the correct result. Clearly neither distinct nor group by will work (on their own) since they will both return the p1, c2 row.
I found this question which is a very close match but I can’t figure out how to re-write it to get it to do what I need.
To top it all this currently needs to work in Access 2007 or later but at some future point it’ll need to work in MySQL as well.
Extra credit to anyone who also joins the results to the customer table so that I can look up the human readable name from the customer code e.g. c1 => Fred Bloggs Spanners
Why community consensus is tight on this one
Across 67 Access VBA entries in the archive, the accepted answer here holds solid answer (above median) status — meaning voters are unusually aligned on the right fix.
The Verified Solution — solid answer (above median) (+10)
4-line Access VBA pattern (copy-ready)
Core Question:
SELECT prod, MIN(cust)
FROM yourTable
GROUP BY prod
For the “Bonus”:
SELECT T.prod,
T.cust,
YC.SomeCustomerAttribute1,
YC.SomeCustomerAttribute2
FROM (
SELECT prod, MIN(cust) AS first_cust
FROM yourProducts
GROUP BY prod
) AS T
JOIN yourCustomers AS YC ON YC.cust = T.first_cust
When to Use It — vintage (14+ years old, pre-2013)
Ranked #36th in its category — specialized fit
This pattern sits in the 68% tail relative to the top answer. Reach for it when your scenario closely matches the question title; otherwise browse the Access VBA archive for a higher-consensus alternative.
What changed between 2012 and 2026
The answer is 14 years old. The Access VBA object model has been stable across Office 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 365, and 2024/2026 LTSC, so the pattern still compiles. Changes that might affect you: 64-bit API declarations (use PtrSafe), blocked macros in downloaded files (Mark-of-the-Web), and the shift toward Office Scripts for web-first workflows.