What is the correct solution for that query - sql

Question

insert into Orders values ('1111',
(Select CustomerID from Customers where CustomerID = (Select CustomerID from customers where CompanyName= 'erp')),
(Select EmployeeID from Employees where EmployeeID = (Select EmployeeID from Employees where FirstName = 'Hello')),
(Select ShipperID from Shippers Where ShipperID = (Select ShipperID from Shippers where CompanyName= 'Ntat')),
'2014-12-01','2013-12-01','22','22','aa','aa','dd','gs','ga','ga','qq');
i am unable to run this Query as i m getting error :
Error Code: 1242. Subquery returns more than 1 row
Kindly help

Answer 1

The INSERT command comes in two flavors:
(1) either you have all your values available, as literals or SQL Server variables - in that case, you can use the INSERT .. VALUES() approach:
INSERT INTO dbo.YourTable(Col1, Col2, ...., ColN)
VALUES(Value1, Value2, #Variable3, #Variable4, ...., ValueN)
Note: I would recommend to always explicitly specify the list of column to insert data into - that way, you won't have any nasty surprises if suddenly your table has an extra column, or if your tables has an IDENTITY or computed column. Yes - it's a tiny bit more work - once - but then you have your INSERT statement as solid as it can be and you won't have to constantly fiddle around with it if your table changes.
(2) if you don't have all your values as literals and/or variables, but instead you want to rely on another table, multiple tables, or views, to provide the values, then you can use the INSERT ... SELECT ... approach:
INSERT INTO dbo.YourTable(Col1, Col2, ...., ColN)
SELECT
SourceColumn1, SourceColumn2, #Variable3, #Variable4, ...., SourceColumnN
FROM
dbo.YourProvidingTableOrView
Here, you must define exactly as many items in the SELECT as your INSERT expects - and those can be columns from the table(s) (or view(s)), or those can be literals or variables. Again: explicitly provide the list of columns to insert into - see above.
You can use one or the other - but you cannot mix the two - you cannot use VALUES(...) and then have a SELECT query in the middle of your list of values - pick one of the two - stick with it.
For more details and further in-depth coverage, see the official MSDN SQL Server Books Online documentation on INSERT - a great resource for all questions related to SQL Server!

Answer 2

TL;DR
There is a design integrity issue with your application, from which you will not be able to recover at a Sql Query level.
In Detail
Using non-key values to lookup foreign keys during an insert is not a great idea, as you've now found - the error message indicates that one or more of the subqueries has matched multiple rows, and now you are faced with an idempotence issue.
e.g. Lets just say that in this instance, you have more than one Employee with the name 'Hello'. Your options appear to be:
Either attribute the order to the FIRST employee with the name 'Hello' - obviously this is potentially unfair to the real employee who made the sale
Insert multiple orders, one for each employee - but now we risk double shipping and billing issues.
So the real solution is to ensure that you carry all of the key fields (either a Primary or Unique Key, whether natural or surrogate) for each of the FK role columns through your application at all times.
This then means that you can insert the data with confidence
insert into Orders values ('1111',
#CustomerId,
#EmployeeId,
#ShipperId,
'2014-12-01','2013-12-01','22','22','aa','aa','dd','gs','ga','ga','qq');

Answer 3

You will have to do this thing with the help of procedure because you are getting more than one value in select statement....
You will have to pass value one by one in insert statement
create procedure test
as
declare #customerid int
declare #empid int
declare #shipperid int
begin
set #customerid= (Select CustomerID from customers where CompanyName='erp')
set #empid=(Select EmployeeID from Employees where FirstName = 'Hello')
set #shipperid =(Select ShipperID from Shippers where CompanyName='Ntat')
-- but note down that it will assign last value to variable
-- but if it returns more than one value you will have to create a temporary table and --then assign value to it and will have to apply loop
-- like this create #temp1 (customerid id)
insert into orders values(#customerid,#smpid,#shipperid,'val1','val2'...ans so one)
end