MS Access SQL: Using SELECT INTO with a UNION ALL query

Question

I'm attempting to turn an already working UNION query into a SELECT INTO as part of a VBA procedure for a bunch of temp tables. I'm doing this because Access is having performance issues.

When I try to run this query with the INTO clauses inserted, I get this error:

"An action query cannot be used as a row source."

I'm not entirely sure why I can't execute it or how to get around it without creating more queries. What is causing this and how do I fix it?

SELECT DISTINCT A.*
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT
C.[CUSTOMER CODE], 
D.[FISCAL DAY], 
D.[TY INVOICE DATE] AS [Invoice Date], 
C.[CUSTOMER CODE]&" - "&D.[FISCAL DAY] AS CONCAT, 
IIF(D.[TY INVOICE DATE] Is Not Null, 'TY', Null) As TYLY

***INTO [FD CUST Missing- Temp]***

FROM [QR- CUST FD] AS C,
[QR- FD SALES] AS D) AS A

LEFT JOIN [QR- CUST FD] AS C
ON C.[FD CONCAT] = A.[CONCAT]
WHERE C.[FD CONCAT] Is Null

UNION ALL 

SELECT DISTINCT 
A.*

***INTO [FD Cust Missing- Temp]***

FROM (SELECT DISTINCT
C.[CUSTOMER CODE],
D.[FISCAL DAY],
D.[LY INVOICE DATE] AS [Invoice Date], 
C.[CUSTOMER CODE]&" - "&D.[FISCAL DAY] AS CONCAT, 
IIF(D.[LY INVOICE DATE] Is Not Null, 'LY', Null) As TYLY

FROM [QR- CUST FD] AS C,
[QR- FD SALES] AS D)  AS A

LEFT JOIN [QR- CUST FD] AS C
ON C.[FD CONCAT] = A.[CONCAT]
WHERE C.[FD CONCAT] IS NULL

;

Answer 1

You are getting the error

An action query cannot be used as a row source.

because a SELECT ... INTO NewTableName FROM ... query is an action query (like an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE query) which does not return a result set. Therefore the UNION ALL has nothing to work with. So, for example, this won't work (resulting in the above error message):

    SELECT DISTINCT LastName 
    INTO Foo 
    FROM Clients 
    WHERE LastName LIKE 'D*'
UNION ALL
    SELECT DISTINCT LastName 
    INTO Foo 
    FROM Clients 
    WHERE LastName LIKE 'T*'

However, you can reorganize that query as follows, which does work:

SELECT *
INTO Foo
FROM
    (
        SELECT DISTINCT LastName 
        FROM Clients 
        WHERE LastName LIKE 'D*'
    UNION ALL
        SELECT DISTINCT LastName 
        FROM Clients 
        WHERE LastName LIKE 'T*'
    )