In Approach they had what they called an alias join database which was a virtual table, where no data was kept but which allowed a way to join a mirror image of a database to itself. They used the classic example of the Employee and Manager. Employees have managers but Managers are also employees both require the same data entities. Thus the original Employee table would have an Employee Id and a Manager Id then they would use the Alias join to be able to key the Employee table as a Manager table. I have the same sort of situation with clients and contacts . How can I simulate the same sort of thing in Alpha or is it possible? How does one go about using more than one field as join fields in Alpha? Such as combining fields to make a primary key of two fields?
Another question I have is if I use a �type field� for entities rather than making up 27 or more tables for each type of entity. How do I manipulate the data which is intrinsically related to the type? The example I might offer is that of date fields say I have quite a number of different types of date fields Birth date Death date, Start date, End date, filing date , fee agreement date, Probate date. Marriage date, Divorce date, Trial date, date of death etc. Obviously many of these values would be empty or null for any given client�s information. So to avoid nulls I simply make a table with client Id and Date Id then a Date type field and Date field. Now I have a clean table with, the name of the kind of date and the date. no nulls. Unfortunately one doesn�t mean much without the other and I need to manipulate the dates. Put them in functions etc and embed them in documents how can I do this using the combination of Date Type field and Date? At the moment I can only think of setting the value of a variable based on the condition of the Date type field and then using the variable for my manipulations ? Is this how to use this ,"Type field" or is there a more direct way? I am still trying to learn basics.
Thank you in advance for any insight or comment
George R. Kenney
Another question I have is if I use a �type field� for entities rather than making up 27 or more tables for each type of entity. How do I manipulate the data which is intrinsically related to the type? The example I might offer is that of date fields say I have quite a number of different types of date fields Birth date Death date, Start date, End date, filing date , fee agreement date, Probate date. Marriage date, Divorce date, Trial date, date of death etc. Obviously many of these values would be empty or null for any given client�s information. So to avoid nulls I simply make a table with client Id and Date Id then a Date type field and Date field. Now I have a clean table with, the name of the kind of date and the date. no nulls. Unfortunately one doesn�t mean much without the other and I need to manipulate the dates. Put them in functions etc and embed them in documents how can I do this using the combination of Date Type field and Date? At the moment I can only think of setting the value of a variable based on the condition of the Date type field and then using the variable for my manipulations ? Is this how to use this ,"Type field" or is there a more direct way? I am still trying to learn basics.
Thank you in advance for any insight or comment
George R. Kenney
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