Hello Bill You might want to use another level of subquery: select * (SELECT MAX(CREAT) KEEP (DENSE_RANK FIRST ORDER BY X.DATE_OF_LAB DESC, X.CREAT **DE**SC)* * FROM PATIENT_LABS X* * WHERE X.CREAT IS NOT NULL* * AND X.PAT_ID = PD.PAT_ID * * AND X.DATE_OF_LAB > sq1.lasttx* *)** AS MRCREAT* *from * (select * (TO_DATE((MAX(PT.DATE_OF_TRANS) OVER (PARTITION BY P**T**.PAT_ID* *ORDER BY P**T**.PAT_ID* * ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING)), 'yyyy.mm.dd')) as lasttx* * from t1, t2 ) * ) sq1 / Cheers Riyaj Shamsudeen Principal DBA, Ora!nternals - http://www.orainternals.com - Specialists in Performance, RAC and EBS Blog: http://orainternals.wordpress.com/ Oracle ACE Director and OakTable member <http://www.oaktable.com/> Co-author of the books: Expert Oracle Practices<http://tinyurl.com/book-expert-oracle-practices/> , Pro Oracle SQL, <http://tinyurl.com/ahpvms8> <http://tinyurl.com/ahpvms8>Expert RAC Practices 12c. <http://tinyurl.com/expert-rac-12c> Expert PL/SQL practices <http://tinyurl.com/book-expert-plsql-practices> <http://tinyurl.com/book-expert-plsql-practices>