I am looking for direction on how to model something for a database. What I am trying to model is this: I have a list of Services. Each service can be made available to a list of countries. Each Service, that is avialable to that Country may or may not actually be being used in that country, so I need to capture that too.
I model this as three tables. CountriesTable, ServicesTable and Services_CountriesTable. The Services_CountriesTable has a column for the Services ID, Country ID and Is_Being_Used, which is aa boolean for whether or not the country is using the Service.
On the application, the user can edit a page about the Service and they can pick from a list of check boxes, for Countries that the services is available in. When the pick countries from the available Countries list, the UI then adds those countries to a second list of checkboxes, that the user can tick to say the country is actually using the service.
This works fine. But, I was asked to include an option, in the list of Countries, for "Worldwide" which is comprised of multiple countries (I can also see other options be requested to have added that would be similar). So, the user can just select Worldwide as the countries the Service is available in.
This causes problems for the Services_CountriesTable table, as I can no longer use it to also track which countries are actually using the service. Since I currently store that value in the relationship in the Country_Service table (Country_ID, Service_ID, Is_Using). But, if I introduce Worldwide, I can't use this because the Country_ID would be for Worldwide, but what would Is_Using mean? Some countries might be using it, but others may not
I could make a set of four tables (Services, Countries, Services_Countries_Available, Services_Countries_Using) but they would all be joined in a circle, which doesn't seem right. Is there a better option to model this?
Related
I'm an intern student at a company that does both wiring and aircon services. The job that they gave me was to make a database for them. I don't have any experience in anything related to databases.
So, I started to look up videos and stuff to at least learn a bit about databases and made something that works and I made it after 1.5 months of learning.
in the database that I created,
I have 1 table (CustomerDetailsT):
CustomerID (pk)
CustomerName
PhoneNumber
Address
Aircond (type and model of ac,ex: WM daikin 1.0HP)
AcDetails (what has been done for the ac.)
Others (yes/no) (Wiring, installing a fan and so on)
WhatHasBeenDone (shows what has been done for others)
Then 3 queries (CustomerOthersDetailsQ, CustomerAcDetailsQ, CustomerDetailsQ).CustomerAcDetailsQ has CustomerName, PhoneNumber, Address, Aircond and AcDetails. CustomerOthersDetailsQ has CustomerName, PhoneNumber, Address, Others, and WhatHasBeenDone.CustomerDetailsQ has CustomerID, CustomerName, PhoneNumber and Address
And 1 form with 3 subforms.
it's a search form, which would search for customers as we're typing in their name/phone number and it will show what has been done for the customer.
With this, I have created what the company wants, but now they want to add dates. Dates which would show when we have done something for a customer. Dates for Aircond and the Others stuff.
I've tried with what I know and it didn't work. tried searching it on youtube and google, but still couldn't find it.
how can I go about doing this?. I have tried having separate tables for each service, but it became a hassle when I wanted to create a new customer. . I hope I could some help, I could send pictures if someone needs them.
[1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtrmC.png [The Customer search form] [1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/A3Y9d.png [example of a customer that has ac installation] [1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/dsGL5.png [example of a customer that has both ac and wiring done]
Acknowledging the question is too broad, here is some guidance. One of the nice things about Access is that each database is a single file. First protect your work by finding that file and make two copies. Make a backup and a play around version. Only mess with the play around version.
Your question indicates you are still learning Table Normalization and 1 to many relationships. Both of these topics are general to all databases, so you don't have to restrict yourself to just Access when looking for guides and Youtube videos.
Part of normalization is putting separate entities into their own tables. Also, in Access there is a big payoff for using the Relationship Tool, so here is a rather lame example of normalization:
Make sure to select the checkboxes when setting up relationships.
WhatHasbeenDone should also have WhatHasbeenDoneDate. I've wrapped AC and Other as Unit because later it will be easier than having two WhatHasBeenDone tables(AC)(Other).
Now imagine someone taking the customer request call. They just want to see a form to enter the customer details, request, unit-type, etc. They don't want to see those tables. Even with training entering data in the tables is error prone. The person fulfilling the request just wants to enter what they did and when. That's how you start to figure out what your final Data entry forms will look like.
Since we normalized the tables and used the relationships tool, the payoff is Access can give us an assortment of working starter forms. Select Each Table and then hit Create and then hit Form. Choose your Favorites and start playing around from there. While playing, keep in mind that Access will not let you add an item on the many side of a relationship unless there is an item on the 1 side.
For example I selected the customers table and hit create form:
Access uses a concept of form and subform based on separate but related tables. So, to get a form that shows what has been done for each customer I created a form for the What has been done table, and dragged it onto the customers form:
Unless an ID is also being used as a part number or something there is probably no reason for the person entering data to see it. So I removed the texboxes bound to ID's. Except for UnitTypeID, where I replaced the textbox with a combobox that displays the userfriendly UnitDescription. The ID's are still part of the form recordsources, Access is still adding new IDs and using those IDs to put the appropriate data in the right tables.
Oh, didn't we need dates (went back and added a date to the table, and adjusted the subform accordingly). Also changed the subform format from single record to continuous records to show multiple dates:
In conclusion and in my opinion your final forms will use VBA behind the scenes to insert data from the forms into the tables. This is because either you will want to rapidly insert multiple records or How the end users think about the data will not match the default forms and subforms approach Access depends upon to figure out how to insert the data. However, the default approach is fast and I always use it for version 1 of my Access Databases.
P.S. For simplicity I avoided including any Many to Many relationships
I'm very new to FileMaker currently working on a Mac. I've been assigned a new simple system to work towards completing and I have bumped into some issues with database relationships. I've got experience with PHP/MySQL databases connections etc. but FileMaker seems to require a somewhat different mindset and approach.
I'll try to explain this as simply as I can.
Here's the table relationships in my database
What I'm trying to do is a list of "to-do" notes, an interactive menu where the user can add things that needs to be done. I've done this with a portal on a layout based on the table "site". The portal is based on the table "todo_notes", which is connected to site through the "site_id".
Here's what it looks like in browse mode
What I'm having problems with is adding a relationship between the todo_notes and contacts. The contacts are two separate tables called "county_contacts" and "property_owner_contacts". What I want to accomplish is the possibility for the user to, from a dropdown-list, add a single contact from these two tables. Preferably I'd like to sort of merge these two tables into the same dropdown-list.
Let me know if you need any other information or a better explanation of my issue. Any help is very welcome!
If you have a single contacts table with foreign keys for both county and property owner tables, that would let you have a single list for all contacts. From there you could also build a value list based on a relationship, for example to filter only contacts that belong to either county or property owners.
If you then need to further normalize the tables, fields that pertain to either relationship exclusively could be moved to another table from there, as a one to one relationship, if that is a concern.
The Short Answer
You need to create a Contacts table. Filemaker has no way of dynamically generating value lists. Instead, you can base a value list on any field, therefore, the only way of generating a list of the contact names would be if they were all in the same table.
The Long Answer
Because Filemaker only allows us to use ONE field for a value list, we must create a new table for the contact. I would recommend that you replace the two contact tables with a single contact table,(seeing as the fields look the same between the two tables) and then add a toggle on the contact for Owner or County. However, you could also create a single contact table for all of the fields that overlap that has foreign keys to the owner and county tables.
You would then use the fullname field from the contact and be good to go.
That is, assuming that you did not want to filter the contacts at all or only show contacts associated with this site.
To start with, I highly recommend using the Anchor-buoy method for organizing the relationship graph. Here's an explanation of the anchor-buoy method: http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/six-fried-rice-methodology-part-2-anchor-buoy-and-data-structures/ . It's just a convention, but will help you with the idea of context in FileMaker. It's widely accepted among the FileMaker community as the "right" way to organize a relationship graph. I will continue my explanation using this method.
Each Table Occurrence (the boxes in the graphs, or TO) represents a unique context from which you can view and edit information. In the anchor buoy method, each Table only has one "anchor" TO. I would recommend only using anchor TO's for the context of your layouts. Then, your portal, and any other corresponding information, will be on your buoy TO's. Here is what your new portal relationship would look like. You would select fields from your buoy TO's to use in the portal.
The easiest way to filter your value list by only contacts associated with this site would be to create a foreign key from the contact table to the site, and then add a TO to the graph, for the contact table. You would then click "Include only related values starting from" radio button, and specify your new TO.
I have a strange requirement in Solr.
The business model is like for each store in state (say victoria), we have different sales catalog (like Richmond, Brunswick etc) which in turn act as fulfillment centers on their own.
so my url of storeId- vic and catalogId-Richmond will retrieve me catalogues with richmond's store.
Now the requirement is I need to filter out the products based on the inventory for each of these sales catalogues.
I constructed a TI table which has the following structure
catentry_id -------- QUANTITY_RICFUL-------------QUANTITY_BrunFUL
1234-------------------0------------------------------------20
I had incorporate the changes in solr query to add these columns in the final result too.
But I do not know how to filter out the products in the front end during catalogue navigation or during search.
Any help would be much appreciated!!!
So basically you want to tie the returned catalog entries in a list with inventory? For instance, when they click on a category you do not want to display products with no inventory?
This would be a customization you can either do at the Solr Level or at the JSP level. You should probably track inventory in commerce (import it) into a field Solr can key off of and then only return items with the flag set to greater than zero. I am not sure if you need actual inventory or just a boolean. Are you using a single fulfillment center or multiple ones? Multiple gets a bit trickier and it would require them to log in most likely but then fulfillment would be addressed by the ship to address.
If the store is set up with ATP inventory then you should just get this for free, as products not in stock will simply not be displayed. Check out this page in the infocenter - http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wchelp/v6r0m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.commerce.user.doc%2Fconcepts%2Fcosatpatpandnonatp.htm
I am not sure what you are trying to ask here but it seems you are trying to display a Quantity dropdown or display an Quantity field under each product on a search page which to me makes no sense from a UI perspective. Also keep in mind if you have integrated with a 3rd party inventory model that runs every few mins/hours etc. How often do you plan to run indexing etc?
I would rather leave such complexity to a Prodcut Detail page. If you do require to show an Quantity field on the search page I would rather prefer displaying a QuickView popup/modal that displays the color/size attributes with the quantity dropdown etc and enable a user to add an item to his/her shopping cart.
I want to create a multi-select Contact Lookup.
What i want :
When user clicks on a lookup then he should be able to select multiple contacts from that.
What i have done:
I have created an object and a field inside that object using both
"Lookup" and
"MasterDetail Relationship" and
"Junction Object"
When i try to use this Field for any input text/Field then it always provides an option to select only one value from lookup but i want to have an option to select multiple.
Even in the Junction object i have created 2 master-detail relationships still lookup allows only one value to be selected.Moreover it makes the field mandatory which i don't want.
Links that i followed:
http://success.salesforce.com/questionDetail?qId=a1X30000000Hl5dEAC
https://ap1.salesforce.com/help/doc/user_ed.jsp?loc=help§ion=help&hash=topic-title&target=relationships_manytomany.htm
Can anybody suggest me how to do this.
Its same as we use Email CC/BCC under Send Email option for any Lead.
Even you use a junction object a lookup is just that, it references (looks up to) one other record: when you create a record on the junction object you still have to set each lookup individually and you're still creating only one record.
Master Detail relationships are essentially lookups on steroids, one object becomes the child of the other and will be deleted if the parent object is deleted, they're not going to provide an interface to lookup to many records at once.
If you're not a developer then your best bet is to either just create on junction object record at a time, or look into using dataloader. You could prepare your data in Excel or similar and then upload all the records into Salesforce in one go.
If you are a developer, or have developers at your disposal, then what we've done in the past is create a Visualforce page to do the job. So if, for example, you wanted to link a bunch of contacts up to an Account, we'd have a single account lookup field on the page, then some search fields relating to fields on the contact. Using a SOQL query you can then find all contacts matching the search parameters and display them in a list, where you may want to provide checkboxes to allow the user to select the contacts they want. Then it's just a case of looping through the selected contacts, setting their Account field to be the chosen account.
There are areas in Salesforce (such as the send Email functionality you mentioned) where it's clear to see that bespoke work has been done to fulfil a specific task — another instance of what you want is in the area where you can manage campaign members. This is the model I've copied in the past when implementing a Visualforce page as described.
Good luck!
For adding multiple junction objects at one time, the only solution we have found is a custom Visualforce page, as described by LaceySnr.
For a slightly different problem, where we need to assign many of object B to object A, We have trained our users to do this with a view on object B. We are assigning Billing Accounts (B) to Payment Offices (A). The view on Billing Account has check boxes on the left side. The user checks the Billing Accounts to be assigned, then double-clicks on the Payment Office field on any of the checked rows. A pop-up asks if you want to update only the single row or all checked rows. By selecting 'all checked rows', the update is done to all of them.
The view is created by the user, who enters the selection criteria (name, address, state, etc.). All user-created views are visible only to them.
First post, please be kind.
NOTE: I have reviewed entry #20856 (how to implement tagging) but feel this is different due to the fact that the tags method I'm considering is organization specific in my app. I’m hoping someone can confirm the direction I’m going or point out some other options.
(background) We are building a web application that gives different organizations visibility to their inventory in different locations. The database stores users, organizations, sites, and items and there are links from sites and items to organizations that allow us to determine which items / sites to show to which users (based on their organization).
It is common for two (or more) organizations to want to use the portal to check on the stock status of (for example) Widget A in the Los Angeles Warehouse. That part is fine. However, the different organizations also track unique information about Widget A. For example, Org 1 wants to track the color, volume, and primary vendor for each item. Org 2 wants to track Color, Stock Type, Inventory Cycle, Buyer Code for each item. I want to avoid a situation where I have to have a table loaded with all these possible fields and then figure out which organizations use which fields.
I’m considering using something along the lines of tags, but adding a tag category, and having the tag category be defined at the Org level. So, the basic table structure would be something like:
Table: OrgTagCategory
Fields: OrgId, TagCategoryId, CategoryTitle
Table: OrgTag
Fields: OrgId, TagCategoryId, TagId, TagTitle
Table: OrgItemTag
Fields: OrgId, ItemId, TagId
Then, when the user logged in the main dashboard the grid would include their appropriate item fields as columns in the grid. So, from above example, Org 1 would see Item#, Description (would be shown for all), color, volume, and primary vendor. Org 2 would be shown Item#, Description, Color, Stock Type, Inventory Cycle, Buyer Code.
Am I overthinking this or is there a simpler method of doing this that I’m missing? All thoughts / feedback sincerely appreciated.
That should be no problem, but you're storing the OrgId redundantly. Also it seems like there could be some overlap (probably a lot of overlap, realistically) between tags and orgs.
Here's how I'd do it:
Table: OrgTag
Fields: OrgId, TagId
Table: Tag
Fields: TagId, TagTitle
Table: ItemTag
Fields: ItemId, TagId
This way each org is associated with the tags it's interested in, but you don't have redundant tags. A given tag that's used by multiple orgs just gets a bunch of rows in OrgTag, instead of multiple rows in Tag with the same TagTitle.
You'd only need a table OrgTagCategory if there were multiple tag categories per org. But you haven't described this extra association as a requirement.
Based on your description I sketched a simplified model and combined it with the observation pattern. This should enable you to track various item properties and user preferences for viewing them. Admittedly, the Preference table may grow large, but data has to be stored somewhere anyway, and you may retrieve it using sql, which simplifies the business layer.
- Organization and person are types of users. User table has columns common to all users, while Organization and Person tables have columns specific to each one.
- A stock item (widget class) can be found at several sites (warehouses); a site stores many items.
- One item belongs to one user; a user can own many items.
- Measurement and trait are types of observations. Measurement is a numeric observation, like height. Trait is a descriptive observation, like color.
- An observation is of a specific type (height, weight, color), there can be many observations of the same type.
- One item (widget class) can have many observations, an observation relates to one item only.
- A user can prefer to display many observations; an observation may be preferred (to display) by many users.
UPDATE
We could simplify user's subscription to item details (observations) by tagging observation type, for example height, weight, width would be tagged with: all, dimensions, physical. Some other tags would be: accounting_interest, tracking_specific, etc. A user would then subscribe to tags only. Tags (could) form a hierarchy with ALL at the top.
- One observation type (height, weight, color) can have many tags, one tag belongs to many observation types.
- Each tag may have a parent tag forming a hierarchy.
- A user stores preferences for a set of tags that she usually monitors.
UPDATE 2
Now we can sort out who is who and who owns what. In this modification a user (now a person) can work for more than one organization (having several part-time jobs or contracts). An item belongs to a organization now. A logged-in user can see all items from all organization that she works for.
My first quick thot on this would be that - if this is just limited to 'showing' particular fields to particular Orgs on Dashboard then it is better to handle it on the App side. If there's any other usage of 'tagging' then pls clarify.
Here's a simple approach -
You can store a field [OrgDashboardFields] in the Org master table or the OrgItem table. This will be a comma (',') separated list of fields to be shown on the dashboard. At run-time fetch the [OrgDashboardFields] field and parse the comma separated list in the app and make the Dashboard Grid behave accordingly.
Or, if there's a dynamic-query framework then based on the [OrgDashboardFields] field you can create a dynamic SQL-query and get the desired result which is purely Org specific.