SQL: How To Select Earliest Row

Question

I have a report that looks something like this:

CompanyA      Workflow27     June5
CompanyA      Workflow27     June8
CompanyA      Workflow27     June12
CompanyB      Workflow13     Apr4
CompanyB      Workflow13     Apr9
CompanyB      Workflow20     Dec11
CompanyB      Wofkflow20     Dec17

This is done with SQL (specifically, T-SQL version Server 2005):

SELECT company
   , workflow
   , date
FROM workflowTable

I would like the report to show just the earliest dates for each workflow:

CompanyA      Workflow27     June5
CompanyB      Workflow13     Apr4
CompanyB      Workflow20     Dec11

Any ideas? I can't figure this out. I've tried using a nested select that returns the earliest tray date, and then setting that in the WHERE clause. This works great if there were only one company:

SELECT company
   , workflow
   , date
FROM workflowTable
WHERE date = (SELECT TOP 1 date
              FROM workflowTable
              ORDER BY date)

but this obviously won't work if there is more than one company in that table. Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

Simply use min()

SELECT company, workflow, MIN(date) 
FROM workflowTable 
GROUP BY company, workflow