Method:Classic General Q&A

Re: Search functions

Anonymous — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:17:49 GMT

I would recommend having a look at some database normalization articles to better understand good database design.

Re: Search functions

Anonymous — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:00:01 GMT

Wavetec:
I have created a large number of fields to document contact information for each Customer. Some of my customer sites have 15 contacts. So I have created ContactName1; ContactCell1; Contactemail1; ContactName2; ContactCell2; etc.

Please see my solution about adding more than one email to a customer contact. What you've done here is going to cause headaches and slow downs as you populate. You always want to build a relationship on duplicate information. Ie. if you require more than 1 cell number, build a CellNumberTable and store the Entity along with each cell number; if you require extra emails, build a ContactEmailTable.

Wavetec:
Is there a way to search for 1 name in all of these fields or did I do this all wrong from the beginning?

Instead of searching a very large customer table will all those extra fields, you can simply search a CustomerEmailTable or CustomerCellTable for much quicker results.

If you find you need to add additional (duplicate) information to a stock table then your should consider a relationship table. The minute you look at the Customer table and say, hey I need to store 2 emails for my customers, consider how your table will look with 15 emails per customer. Having ContactEmail1 - ContactEmail15 is really going to slow the entire Customer table down.

If you have any problems with your implementation or screen/table design please contact us for consulting. We can point you in the right direction with a session or build it for you.

Search functions

Wavetec — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:03:22 GMT

I have created a large number of fields to document contact information for each Customer. Some of my customer sites have 15 contacts. So I have created ContactName1; ContactCell1; Contactemail1; ContactName2; ContactCell2; etc.

I need to be able to search for names in these fields. If someone needs a phone number for "Mr. Smith" and they don't know what customer he associated with he's very difficult to find.

Is there a way to search for 1 name in all of these fields or did I do this all wrong from the beginning?

Thanks,

Greg from WaveTec