that tool works well...

other resources/alternates:

http://www.sqldts.com/default.aspx?204

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=8&messageid=155452

sorry if you've already checked them out.

yes... here's another summary.

http://www.7hertz.com/archives/2005/01/dts_sql_agent_ownership_problem.html

i started using count(1) when count(*) appeared not to return results in a timely manner (on very large table, lots of rows/columns).  if truly implemented the same way by...

this should do the trick.  modify at will to include other data...

select a.*

from dbo.u_external_requests a

where  a.stage in (

  select top 2 stage from dbo.u_external_requests b

  where b.acct_number = a.acct_number

  and b.stage...

you don't need a cursor. you should be able to accomplish this by normalizing your data, and using an identity column.

especially because your doing something like this... which is odd.