Need to find Average of top 3 records grouped by ID in SQL - sql

Question

I have a postgres table with customer ID's, dates, and integers. I need to find the average of the top 3 records for each customer ID that have dates within the last year. I can do it with a single ID using the SQL below (id is the customer ID, weekending is the date, and maxattached is the integer).
One caveat: the maximum values are per month, meaning we're only looking at the highest value in a given month to create our dataset, thus why we're extracting month from the date.
SELECT
id,
round(avg(max),0)
FROM
(
select
id,
extract(month from weekending) as month,
extract(year from weekending) as year,
max(maxattached) as max
FROM
myTable
WHERE
weekending >= now() - interval '1 year' AND
id=110070 group by id,month,year
ORDER BY
max desc limit 3
) AS t
GROUP BY id;
How can I expand this query to include all ID's and a single averaged number for each one?
Here is some sample data:
ID | MaxAttached | Weekending
110070 | 5 | 2011-11-10
110070 | 6 | 2011-11-17
110071 | 4 | 2011-11-10
110071 | 7 | 2011-11-17
110070 | 3 | 2011-12-01
110071 | 8 | 2011-12-01
110070 | 5 | 2012-01-01
110071 | 9 | 2012-01-01
So, for this sample table, I would expect to receive the following results:
ID | MaxAttached
110070 | 5
110071 | 8
This averages the highest value in a given month for each ID (6,3,5 for 110070 and 7,8,9 for 110071)
Note: postgres version 8.1.15

Answer 1

First - get the max(maxattached) for every customer and month:
SELECT id,
max(maxattached) as max_att
FROM myTable
WHERE weekending >= now() - interval '1 year'
GROUP BY id, date_trunc('month',weekending);
Next - for every customer rank all his values:
SELECT id,
max_att,
row_number() OVER (PARTITION BY id ORDER BY max_att DESC) as max_att_rank
FROM <previous select here>;
Next - get the top 3 for every customer:
SELECT id,
max_att
FROM <previous select here>
WHERE max_att_rank <= 3;
Next - get the avg of the values for every customer:
SELECT id,
avg(max_att) as avg_att
FROM <previous select here>
GROUP BY id;
Next - just put all the queries together and rewrite/simplify them for your case.
UPDATE: Here is an SQLFiddle with your test data and the queries: SQLFiddle.
UPDATE2: Here is the query, that will work on 8.1 :
SELECT customer_id,
(SELECT round(avg(max_att),0)
FROM (SELECT max(maxattached) as max_att
FROM table1
WHERE weekending >= now() - interval '2 year'
AND id = ct.customer_id
GROUP BY date_trunc('month',weekending)
ORDER BY max_att DESC
LIMIT 3) sub
) as avg_att
FROM customer_table ct;
The idea - to take your initial query and run it for every customer (customer_table - table with all unique id for customers).
Here is SQLFiddle with this query: SQLFiddle.
Only tested on version 8.3 (8.1 is too old to be on SQLFiddle).

Answer 2

8.3 version
8.3 is the oldest version I've got access to, so I can't guarantee it'll work in 8.1
I'm using a temporary table to work out the best three records.
CREATE TABLE temp_highest_per_month as
select
id,
extract(month from weekending) as month,
extract(year from weekending) as year,
max(maxattached) as max_in_month,
0 as priority
FROM
myTable
WHERE
weekending >= now() - interval '1 year'
group by id,month,year;
UPDATE temp_highest_per_month t
SET priority =
(select count(*) from temp_highest_per_month t2
where t2.id = t.id and
(t.max_in_month < t2.max_in_month or
(t.max_in_month= t2.max_in_month and
t.year * 12 + t.month > t2.year * 12 + t.month)));
select id,round(avg(max_in_month),0)
from temp_highest_per_month
where priority <= 3
group by id;
The year & month are included in the working out the priority so that if two months have the same maximum, they'll still be included in the numbering correctly.
9.1 version
Similar to Igor's answer, but I used the With clause to split the steps.
with highest_per_month as
( select
id,
extract(month from weekending) as month,
extract(year from weekending) as year,
max(maxattached) as max_in_month
FROM
myTable
WHERE
weekending >= now() - interval '1 year'
group by id,month,year),
prioritised as
( select id, month, year, max_in_month,
row_number() over (partition by id, month, year
order by max_in_month desc)
as priority
from highest_per_month
)
select id, round(avg(max_in_month),0)
from prioritised
where priority <= 3
group by id;