Advise on Relationship Structure Needed

[Beachdaze]

All,

After several rounds of downsizing I have been annointed DBA because I don't lock my machine up twice a day. We are a custom manufacturer and need a new quote tracking system.

So far I have 4 DB files

Contacts(individuals)

Companies

Requests for Quotes(RFQ's)

Line Items

The main interface needs to be the Requests for Quote file

When I enter a new RFQ I want to be able to pick a company from existing clients or add a new if required. and add new contact for that company if needed.

I could create a global key that would show me all companies and allow creation of records however,

I see debate over whether or not to allow creation of records through portals.

How would I deal with adding contacts to companies from the same layout?

Should I flatten contacts & companies?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Learning on the fly and appreciative of the support

Beach

[danjacoby]

I always have a button to add new companies. It takes me to the Companies file, where new companies can be added.

I presume that, since each company can have several contacts, there is a relationship between the two files, in which case the contacts can be added in a portal in the Companies file.

Not that I should be advising anybody about relationships, but that's a different story.

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Hi,

Contact database again. Very frequent topic these days....

"Allow creation of RELATED records" should be used IMO when working with existant records within the files. You woud use some value list to select the Ids and then create a new link for this existant record.

When used to CREATE a new record, and especially with names, the potential of duplicate records that could be created through a direct entry is high.

Better approach would be to use some global fields and script the new entries with an intermediate script step that checks for existing duplicates, by some relationship and calculations.

"Should I flatten contacts & companies?"

This is another debate, and clearly depends upon your structure, but from what you described, separating contacts and companies would be best.

[Beachdaze]

Guys,

Thanks for your thoughts

Beach