Self join or separate table

[iThink]

Hi,

I have a table called purchases that tracks merchant purchases. I created a drop down value list of all entered merchants in the merchant field. I want to be able to avoid redundant data entry, (web address, email, address, phone etc).

I created another purchase table occurrence attempting a self join (merchant = merchant relationship). I used the purchase table occurrence fields (web, email, address, phone, etc) in the purchases table and if I selected a merchant from my drop down value list of previously entered merchants, it seemed to work as far as filling in those data fields, but it was somehow generating 2 records within the purchases table.

What am I missing or am I going about this the wrong way. I simply want to avoid redundant data entry after a merchant has already been entered once into a purchase record.

[bcooney]

You need a separate table for Merchants. Then, in a purchase, you store the kfMerchantID. How you store it is a question of interface design. You could have a popup field using a value list of MerchantIDs and Names or only create new purchase from a Merchant record (then the Merchant ID is set via script).