How to Create Self Join MS Access

Quick summary

A self join in MS Access lets you query a single table as if it were two separate tables, enabling comparisons within the same dataset. Using Query Design, you can link an Employees table to itself to retrieve hierarchical or relational data in just a few steps.

Steps

1. Go to the 'Create' tab in MS Access.
2. Click 'Query Design' to open the query design view.
3. Drag the Employees table into the query design window twice to add two instances.
4. Note that Access automatically aliases the second instance as Employees_1.
5. Create the join by dragging the matching field from the first table instance to the corresponding field in the second instance.
6. In the query design grid, choose the fields to display in your results.
7. Click 'Run' to execute the query and view the self join results.