Retire a record

[Totes]

Greetings,

Is it possible to “Retire” a record, that is to keep it in the db but not have it recalled via a normal query etc.

What I have is an employee table, and I want to be able to “Retire” that employee but keep a record of their information for later use. However, since that employee is no longer around, their information does not need to be included in any currently extracted data for the company.

I know I could set a "retired" field which I could omit during a search, I want to know if there is another way?

Thanks for any information,

Jim

[Breezer]

I would create another table, exactly the same as the current table that you are using and use it for some type of "Posting" meaning that, when an employee retires, you post the employees data into the "Post Table", that way those records will not be in the way. After posting a record successfully, it can then be deleted from the main table.

You can move the record data either via a "Set Field" script or "Import" script step. However, make sure you have a way of checking to make sure the posting was sucessful before deleting the record.

Edited August 20, 2006 by Guest

[Ender]

I would recommend AGAINST moving records from one table to another for the purpose of archiving them. It's too easy for something to go wrong, leaving incomplete or missing records in the archive. It also makes it difficult to produce a combined report that shows records from both sets.

It's easier and safer to keep the records in their original table, and use a Status field to mark those that are "Active", "Retired", "Terminated", or whatever. With a Status field, you can then give most of the Finds and relationships a default filter to show only Active Employees. In cases where users might need to find records with a different Status, you can expose a global Status Filter field, letting them select a different criteria to filter by.

[BruceJ]

For me - my records are usually utilized in lists and calcs via relationships (vs Find) and I simply "break" the relationship by adding to the Key Fields. I usually add something to the end of the unique ID like "<>" and then if I ever want to revive the record, I can remove this tag at the end of the key field and it's back in service.

I almost always have some sort of seperate "status" field in each record as has been sugested that can be included or excluded in any search criteria.

[aldipalo]

That's intersting Ender. How would you set up a default filter for a find request?

[Ender]

Easy enough:

...

Enter Find Mode []

Set Field [ Status ; "Active" ]

Pause Script [ Indefinately ]

Perform Find []

...