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The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
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  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
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  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
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Summary Operation or Posting by field rules?

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    #1

    Summary Operation or Posting by field rules?

    Hi:

    I am interested to hear everyones comments on the above question?!

    I have been an Alpha user since A4v2 using a variety of different databases for my own business use. Virtually all of the databases have now migrated to A5V4.5 except for my "flagship" which I use to provide a sports statistics service to a professional sports league. This has been developed over many, many days and nights, often by trial and error and certainly without any formal training beforehand.

    Because I have to produce a very complex set of weekly reports and even more complicated end of season reports. I have developed a system which utilises a whole series of scripts to create the necessary segments of the reports which are then exported into word, where a further series of macros is used to create the reports. (I have not even tried to create these reports in A4!)

    I have attached a pdf file which contains a sample of a weekly reports from which you will be able to see that there are many, many sections to them!

    I know now from my growing knowledge of database design that, the current structure has limitations and is full of redundant data. This fact coupled with the reporting requirements has until now persuaded me not to switch to A5.

    But now I have decided to take the plunge and am in the process of re-designing the database from the ground up. I have gone right back to basics and am trying not to be influenced by the way I currently process data.

    At present I use a series of "storage" databases into which date entered for the various statistical categories are posted via field rules (there are 8 storage dbf's!) from here various sets have been created to produce the various reports. There is a whole bunch of calculated fields which presently lie in these tables, which I think I should remove and create in the reporting functions instead.

    I am considering as an alternative to this approach using summary tables instead of posting rules and here in lies my question (at last!) I am trying to figure out which method would be easier to establish, give me greater data integrity, and perhaps most importantly provide a better chance to create the necessary reports, or export files! Would there be any difference?

    I hope the above makes sense and I eagerly await your thoughts.

    Glen Schild
    Glen Schild



    My Blog

    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Summary Operation or Posting by field rules?

    Glen,

    The posting field rules will update the 'storage' tables as records are added to the primary tables. This occurs individually, as each record is added. The 'storage' tables are always up to date.

    A summary operation is more akin to a batch operation. It would be run periodically to transfer or update the 'storage' table all at once. The storage table is current only until new records begin to be added to the primary tables.

    Reminds me of the oil filter commercials. "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later..."

    The design choice will probably turn on things like:

    1) how important is keeping the 'storage' tables current at all times?

    2) how long will it take to run the batch update before useful reports can be produced?

    3) do the posting field rules slow down data entry too much?

    -- tom

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Summary Operation or Posting by field rules?

      Tom:

      Thanks for the response.

      It is important that the cumulative stats are available reasonably quickly which is why I have used the posting field rules but I guess the 2 concerns I have surround the issue of making sure ALL players are represented in the "storage" tables as there is room for errors not immediately surfacing ie: some entries not posting due to no linking field in one or more of the storage tables.

      The other concern is that while most of the posting field rules involve addition/subtraction there are some fields which are "maximums" in a category and I have not figured out how to successfully post (and if needed subsequently amend) such fields. Again at present I run a separate operation to update this field in the storage tables before running reports, hence this got me thinking about an alternative method.

      Regards

      Glen
      Glen Schild



      My Blog

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