Ad 2): Maybe my approach to publishing is incorrect: Maybe those two layers (cities and surnames) should stay set as Feature class and Table (instead of setting them as feature set and record set) because they are not Inputs actually (the make query table does work with those entire datasets.. I dont want user to "choose" a subset from them...) If so, then only Parametres should be the "SQL expression" and the variable "INITsurname" which is substituted in the Query. Is this thought right?