Method Community

Looking for "best practice" advice.  I'm in the pool service industry and need to track work oder related info like pool chemical readings, pool condition, etc. 

Option 1: add chemical readings and pool condition fields to existing activities table
Pros: easier to manage
Cons: harder to share screens with other's since the screen would depend on my table design

Option 2: create a table for chem readings and pool conditions and link to work order number
Pros: easier to share screens with others
Cons: harder to create mobile screens when we need to access the work order details and chemical readings details at the same time. Probably slows down screen loading when having to make calls for field data to load recorded  data or save new data.

I'm leaning towards option 2 because I would be able to share screens easier which will help if I expand my business or franchise. 

Any feedback or advice would be welcome.

James,

Option 1:

If there is only going to be 1 set of chemical readings, then this option would work. The con you mentioned isn't actually an issue, if you were to copy the screen to another account then the newly created fields would also be copied to the tables in the other account.

Option 2:

In this situation I would probably create a new table and have it linked both to the Work Order number and Customer. Doing this will allow you to have a grid in a work order with the chemical reading and add a grid to the customer with chemical readings. I don't think there should be much speed difference in this.

I would personally go with option 2 for what you are trying to do, and I would setup the table with the following fields along side any other fields you might need.

Date
Customer(Drop down)
Work Order Number(Drop down)
ChemicalName(Drop down)
Reading

-Michael