how to use distinct in ms access

Question

I have two tables. Task and Categories.

Answer 1

Using SELECT DISTINCT will work for you, but a better solution here would be to change your database design.

Duplicate records may lead to inconsistent data. For example, imagine having two different status in different records with the same TaskID. Which one would be right?

A better design would include something like a Task table, a Contact table and an Assignment table, as follows (the fields in brackets are the PK):

Tasks: [TaskID], TaskPriority, Subject, Status, DueDate, Completed, StartDate, Owner, CategoryID, ContactID, ...

Contact: [ID], Name, Surname, Address, PhoneNumber, ...

Assignment: [TaskID, ContactID]

Then, you can retrieve the Tasks with a simple SELECT from the Tasks tables. And whenever you need to know the contacts assigned to a Tasks, you would do so using the JOIN clause, like this

SELECT T.*, C.*
FROM TaskID as T 
  INNER JOIN Assignment as A
    ON T.TaskID = A.TaskID
  INNER JOIN Contac as C
    ON A.ContactID = C.ID

Or similar. You can filter, sort or group the results using all of SQL's query power.