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Data Modeling
by VanBuskirk, Patricia
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I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships.
How would I handle the following situation: * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated with more than one business (although this is much rarer). I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join table? Would there be a better way to manage this? Thanks, Trish ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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RE: Data Modeling
by Richard DeShong
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Dear Trish,
Yes, you've got the idea correct. The "company" table would describe just the company. The "Contact" table would describe just the contact. The join table, say "CompanyContact" would describe the relationship. For example, it would have fields for a Company key, and Contact key. This establishes the connection. Then it would have fields such as "Position" to describe the position that this contact has with this company. Various dates ("started with this company") and even phone numbers (for a direct line). -- Richard DeShong, Athletic Study Center, UCBerkeley -----Original Message----- From: VanBuskirk, Patricia I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships. How would I handle the following situation: * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated with more than one business (although this is much rarer). I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join table? Would there be a better way to manage this? _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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Re: Data Modeling
by Bruce Robertson
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> I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships.
> How would I handle the following situation: > > * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated > with more than one business (although this is much rarer). > > I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am > correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join > table? Would there be a better way to manage this? > > Thanks, > Trish This is overkill for your request, but for an exhaustive look at data modeling check this out: The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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RE: Data Modeling
by VanBuskirk, Patricia
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Thanks Bruce & Richard! Do you think it would be better in this case to
just have a business table with contact1 and contact2 fields? That book looks very interesting, but even at Amazon, quite pricey! I guess I need to pay a visit to the library! Trish -----Original Message----- From: fmpexperts-bounces@... [mailto:fmpexperts-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Bruce Robertson Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 3:40 PM To: fmpexperts@... Subject: Re: Data Modeling > I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships. > How would I handle the following situation: > > * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated > with more than one business (although this is much rarer). > > I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am > correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join > table? Would there be a better way to manage this? > > Thanks, > Trish This is overkill for your request, but for an exhaustive look at data modeling check this out: The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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RE: Data Modeling
by Richard DeShong
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Trish,
The answer, of course, isn't simple. What happens when you want more than 2 contacts per company? If you were looking at a Contact rcd, how could you tell with which company they were associated? Or do you care? There's a whole series of questions like this that developers ask to try to determine what it is you want to do with the data. Then the modeling takes place to try to accommodate the functions. -- Richard DeShong, Athletic Study Center, UCBerkeley -----Original Message----- From: VanBuskirk, Patricia Thanks Bruce & Richard! Do you think it would be better in this case to just have a business table with contact1 and contact2 fields? That book looks very interesting, but even at Amazon, quite pricey! I guess I need to pay a visit to the library! Trish -----Original Message----- From: Bruce Robertson > I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships. > How would I handle the following situation: > > * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated > with more than one business (although this is much rarer). > > I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am > correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join > table? Would there be a better way to manage this? > > Thanks, > Trish This is overkill for your request, but for an exhaustive look at data modeling check this out: The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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RE: Data Modeling
by VanBuskirk, Patricia
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Good advice, Richard. Thanks!
His business is relatively small now, but I am trying to think more long-term. I was going to just have a contacts table, but found his existing data has several overlaps. This is the first from-scratch FMP database/solution (other than training) that I've done. The one at work has evolved since the beginning of time! Trish -----Original Message----- From: fmpexperts-bounces@... [mailto:fmpexperts-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Richard DeShong Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 4:19 PM To: fmpexperts@... Subject: RE: Data Modeling Trish, The answer, of course, isn't simple. What happens when you want more than 2 contacts per company? If you were looking at a Contact rcd, how could you tell with which company they were associated? Or do you care? There's a whole series of questions like this that developers ask to try to determine what it is you want to do with the data. Then the modeling takes place to try to accommodate the functions. -- Richard DeShong, Athletic Study Center, UCBerkeley -----Original Message----- From: VanBuskirk, Patricia Thanks Bruce & Richard! Do you think it would be better in this case to just have a business table with contact1 and contact2 fields? That book looks very interesting, but even at Amazon, quite pricey! I guess I need to pay a visit to the library! Trish -----Original Message----- From: Bruce Robertson > I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships. > How would I handle the following situation: > > * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated > with more than one business (although this is much rarer). > > I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am > correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join > table? Would there be a better way to manage this? > > Thanks, > Trish This is overkill for your request, but for an exhaustive look at data modeling check this out: The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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RE: Data Modeling
by Jorge Bernal - Information Technology
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MANY TO MANY...
I have ten years working with Oracle and I've never had to do something like relationship between many many, If there is a relationship of many to many, it is necessary to create an intermediate table to break that relationship necessarily Ing. Jorge Bernal R IT Department Mossack Fonseca "Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny." Bob Marley -----Original Message----- From: fmpexperts-bounces@... [mailto:fmpexperts-bounces@...] On Behalf Of VanBuskirk, Patricia Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:52 PM To: fmpexperts@... Subject: RE: Data Modeling Thanks Bruce & Richard! Do you think it would be better in this case to just have a business table with contact1 and contact2 fields? That book looks very interesting, but even at Amazon, quite pricey! I guess I need to pay a visit to the library! Trish -----Original Message----- From: fmpexperts-bounces@... [mailto:fmpexperts-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Bruce Robertson Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 3:40 PM To: fmpexperts@... Subject: Re: Data Modeling > I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships. > How would I handle the following situation: > > * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be associated > with more than one business (although this is much rarer). > > I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am > correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a join > table? Would there be a better way to manage this? > > Thanks, > Trish This is overkill for your request, but for an exhaustive look at data modeling check this out: The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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Re: Data Modeling
by Søren Dyhr
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Den 15/07/2008 kl. 21.15 skrev VanBuskirk, Patricia: > Do I need a join > table? Would there be a better way to manage this? If you already from the start, hardly could imagine that you ever would report on the ties made via a the join, could a text field instead with a pilcrow delimited list be all it takes to make this many2many work sufficiently. It's probably what Bruce means?? --sd _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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Re: Data Modeling
by Ibrahim Bittar Torres
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Hi Jorge
FileMaker is a different breed of database. Sometimes you just need to grab the first record of a group of related records. For example in my system, there is a Companies table, each company can have many addresses, each address can have many contacts. Then in a quote for example, when you pick a Company the Address ID field looks up for the first available address for that Company in the Addresses table. This is a Many to Many relationship -> Quotes::Company ID = Addresses::Company ID. Afterwards the user can select a specific address with a conditional value list and then you have a One to One relationship -> Quotes::Address ID = Addresses::Address ID. So IMHO normalization rules can be broken from time to time in order to gain flexibility or speed. Saludos Ibrahim Bittar Torres Director General Eikonsys FileMaker 9 Certified Developer http://www.eikonsys.com FileMaker Business Alliance On 15/07/2008, at 03:33 PM, Jorge Bernal - Information Technology wrote: > MANY TO MANY... > > I have ten years working with Oracle and I've never had to do > something like relationship between many many, If there is a > relationship of many to many, it is necessary to create an > intermediate table to break that relationship necessarily > > > Ing. Jorge Bernal R > IT Department > Mossack Fonseca > "Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny." Bob Marley > > > -----Original Message----- > From: fmpexperts-bounces@... [mailto:fmpexperts-bounces@... > ] On Behalf Of VanBuskirk, Patricia > Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:52 PM > To: fmpexperts@... > Subject: RE: Data Modeling > > Thanks Bruce & Richard! Do you think it would be better in this > case to > just have a business table with contact1 and contact2 fields? > > That book looks very interesting, but even at Amazon, quite pricey! I > guess I need to pay a visit to the library! > > Trish > > > -----Original Message----- > From: fmpexperts-bounces@... > [mailto:fmpexperts-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Bruce > Robertson > Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 3:40 PM > To: fmpexperts@... > Subject: Re: Data Modeling > >> I am trying to master the process of data modeling and relationships. >> How would I handle the following situation: >> >> * A business can have more than one contact. A contact can be > associated >> with more than one business (although this is much rarer). >> >> I am thinking a "companies" table and a "contacts" table. If I am >> correct, this would be a many-to-many relationship .. Do I need a >> join >> table? Would there be a better way to manage this? >> >> Thanks, >> Trish > > This is overkill for your request, but for an exhaustive look at data > modeling check this out: > > The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston > > _______________________________________________ > FMPexperts mailing list > FMPexperts@... > http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au > _______________________________________________ > FMPexperts mailing list > FMPexperts@... > http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au > _______________________________________________ > FMPexperts mailing list > FMPexperts@... > http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au > _______________________________________________ FMPexperts mailing list FMPexperts@... http://lists.ironclad.net.au/listinfo.cgi/fmpexperts-ironclad.net.au |
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Re: Data Modeling
by Søren Dyhr
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I see it's the same book Theo Gantos reviews here: http://www.tekainc.com/publications/aitpdmresbkreview.html So is it also your take, after having read the book? - when he writes this in his review: Filemaker is a very atypical tool - is he right here?? --sd |
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