Table/File Structure

[caveat1]

Maybe this has been discussed extensively elsewhere, but I am wondering about the strategies and pros and cons for structuring tables and files in FMP 8. I started out in FMP 5, where there was no option to include multiple tables in one file. Several years later, I am in FMP 8 and still learning what I have missed in the upgrades.

I have read some things about tables/files. One source recommended separating out a table into a separate file if it was very large and required a different method of backing up. Another idea was to separate out, for example, calculated inventory fields into a table separate from product information. This was used to prevent problems when multiple users were in the same product record - one updating the product itself, and the other entering an invoice that changed the inventory level for that product.

I am inclined to put all tables for our invoicing/inventory/customer/marketing database into one file, in order to make it impossible to accidentally move related files and break the links between them. (As happened to a previous FM -based software at our company, causing a crash and major loss of data.) However, I do understand the logic of grouping similar tables into different files. (How do we keep these together and prevent accidental moving of the files?)

Any thoughts would be welcome. If there is another thread somewhere in this forum that covers this, I would be happy to take a look at that too.

Thanks,

KC

[Ender]

Greetings KC,

That bit about backing up sounds like something I might have said. But before I make a suggestion, can you fill in the picture a little:

How large is the entire solution? How many files? How many records in the largest files? Is this a multi-user solution or stand alone?

[caveat1]

Hello Ender,

Thanks for your response. This solution will be shared by 5 users on a pier-to-pier network. All the files together are about 19MB right now. One table, that mostly stands alone as a mailing list has 5500 records. The others that will have relationships to each other mostly have no more than 100 records, with one having about 700 records and another having about 350 and growing. I hope this is what you were looking for.

[Ender]

You're definitely in the realm where keeping everything in one file is best.

When you get up over 20 tables, or several hundred thousand records in a table, you can revisit this.

[caveat1]

Thank you so much. Putting all the tables in one file will definitely make things more stable for us.