Relationship / Structural Questions

[SurferNate]

I don't know how best to frame this question, as it only became important to me upon some very recent "big" learning steps.

I guess I have two major ponderings...

Is there any good example file out there, that shows an efficient way to build the structure for a Product-Assembly-Component type database. I hacked my way through this and am not satisfied with the "cost" of the results in terms of both complexity and speed. Anyone reading or contributing to my Summarize Grandchildren headache has the background to see what I mean.

Also, as far as contact (CRM) relationships are concerned, is there a preferred structure, where people have many to many relationships with various locations, phone numbers, businesses, etc.? Is there a "best practice" example file available to show how best to handle this? For instance, I may have John Smith, his personal residence, his main business (a corporation), his side business (DBA Somthingorother), his mailing addresses, etc etc. What is the best structure to relate John Smith, to all of that, and yet have each type of contact/location also be functionally independent of John Smith, for other relationships (a corporation, or any address for that matter can be independent does not actually need John Smith)?. To complete the question, how might I take all of that and simplify the end user selection of the exact Contact/Company/Location relationship? Is there a preferred balance in the complexity of such structures?

I know the question is vague. That's because I don't have one explicit issue to resolve, but more a set of functional paradigms to build.

EDIT: I just opened and started playing a little with SeedCode Complete. That probably just answered most of my CRM question. For what they include, it looks pretty darn cost effective to just pay for either the open site or developer license.

Edited June 9, 2008 by Guest