Yep, I was hoping to bypass the stored procedure route, but it looks as though it's the only way.

Thanks

>You can do the first select into a cursor and than add new record with Null date.
>
>>Oops, sorry. I know the problem of not being able to use the order by in the first select. Any ideas on how to return the correct results?
>>
>>John
>>
>>>You've to add 'order by begin_date desc' to the first select in whcih case it cannot be UNION.
>>>