MS ACCESS - Dynamically retrieve records from table based on criteria from another field

Question

Looking for some advice on a particular situation in my DB...

Right now I have a database that has a query that links to a source data table. In the query, I have a table that has Group IDs, the subgroup IDs and their corresponding states. It is linked to the source data by the Group ID and is pulling States based on this.

What I am aiming to do is if the subgroup ID contains a keyword, lets say "Dog", instead of pulling states by Group ID, pull it by subgroup ID.

I have attempted using an iif statement and setting up a standalone query for just subgroup ids but I get empty values.

In the example below, records 1 & 4, would retrieve CA & WI. Records 2 & 3, because they have "Dog" in the description, they would retrieve NY.

My query is organised like so,

Group ID        Subgroup ID     State
1   1000067 Omega       541111  Aplha   
2   1000056 Epsilon     542222  Bravo Dog   
3   2000653 Gamma       546066  Echo Dog    
4   2000654 Theta       968886  Charlie 

& the reference table looks like this,

ID      
1000067 Omega   CA
1000056 Epsilon FL
2000653 Gamma   TX
2000654 Theta   WI
541111  Alpha   CA
542222  Bravo Dog   NY
546066  Echo Dog    NY
968886  Charlie FL

Really appreciate any help or thoughts on best way to proceed!

Answer 1

In essence what you want to do is run two slightly different queries - one "dog" query and one "non-dog" query - and merge the results. A UNION query can do that. With our main table [dogMain]

Record_ID  Group_ID         Subgroup_ID      
---------  ---------------  -----------------
        1  1000067 Omega    541111  Alpha    
        2  1000056 Epsilon  542222  Bravo Dog
        3  2000653 Gamma    546066  Echo Dog 
        4  2000654 Theta    968886  Charlie  

and our reference table [dogRef]

ID                 State
-----------------  -----
1000067 Omega      CA   
1000056 Epsilon    FL   
2000653 Gamma      TX   
2000654 Theta      WI   
541111  Alpha      CA   
542222  Bravo Dog  NY   
546066  Echo Dog   NY   
968886  Charlie    FL   

the query

    SELECT dogMain.Record_ID, dogRef.State
    FROM dogMain INNER JOIN dogRef ON dogRef.ID = dogMain.Group_ID
    WHERE dogMain.Subgroup_ID NOT LIKE '*dog'
UNION ALL
    SELECT dogMain.Record_ID, dogRef.State
    FROM dogMain INNER JOIN dogRef ON dogRef.ID = dogMain.Subgroup_ID
    WHERE dogMain.Subgroup_ID LIKE '*dog'
ORDER BY 1

returns

Record_ID  State
---------  -----
        1  CA   
        2  NY   
        3  NY   
        4  WI