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Database Design Question - Pro's Advice NEEDED!

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    Database Design Question - Pro's Advice NEEDED!

    Alright Alpha Pros...What do you think?

    First...a big thanks to Eric, Steve, Pat, Keith for helping me out in the past.

    THE BIG PICTURE: I am developing a web based safety round tracking system for people to enter safety round findings. I expect to have 100 clients. Each client will have a several buildings and each building will have dozens of departments.

    PROBLEM NUMBER 1:

    Although >90% of the system will work for everyone, each client does have minor differences. One of my main issues is how to let each facility set the priority level for each individual safety round finding (there are 130 different findings possible).

    Here is how the system works. A user logs in and is directed to the website for their facility. The user than clicks a link allowing them to enter a new safety round. They begin by chosing the department (from their facility only) they are adding a safety round for. The next dialog allows them to start entering findings by selecting from the list of 130 possible findings mentioned above (this list is common to ALL clients).

    Each finding has a risk factor associated with it. The higher the risk factor, the faster the item must be fixed. When the safety round is completed with all the findings entered, the report is emailed to the department manager with each finding listed in priority order. Here is what I need help with, I need each client to be able to set their OWN priority level to each of the 130 possible findings. They will also need to be able to set the time limit for each priority level. I have no idea how to accomplish this. Should I create a seperate findings list for every client? That would nean 100 tables containing the 130 possible findings. I can do this but it would be a pain to have to manage it especially if I needed to make a change to the possible findings. Is there an easier way?

    PROBLEM NUMBER 2:

    My other issue is database size. Each client will have approx 300 departments. And every department is surveyed twice per year with an average of 10 findings found each survey. This means that I could have as many as 600,000 individual findings per year. Each finding consists of 12 fields.

    Thanks in advance for your assistance.

    #2
    Re: Database Design Question - Pro's Advice NEEDED!

    Big Picture questions are difficult to answer because the picture is always bigger than the description provided. So everything I suggest may be all wrong!

    I'm positive you want your "FindingPriority" list in as one table with 100*130=13000 records, each record with one finding priority for one company. You can add or remove companies as needed from that one table. Each company can view the priority settings in a grid filtered by company.

    I assume the person doing the safety pass is oblivious of the priority, they are just entering what they find, and then the manager views the report in priority order, and takes action. Sounds then like this person views a grid record with a 130 long dropdown to select a finding, then enters the value, then moves on.

    However, 130 is a very long list from which to select, so one option is a "shopping cart" approach (see image). Here the user searches on a category, just those items appear, and they set quantities. When they submit, a record is added or update in the cart list to the right and it updates to show the current list. On a later screen, they "commit" the order.

    In your No 2 area, you'd obviously want to archive every one or two years.
    Last edited by Steve Wood; 12-14-2008, 02:03 AM. Reason: added image
    Steve Wood
    See my profile on IADN

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      #3
      Re: Database Design Question - Pro's Advice NEEDED!

      Thanks Steve.

      I had thought about making one table with the findings repeated for each client. This makes sense. It would be easy enough to add another set of findings every time I add a new client.

      As for the priority setting, the priority is determined by a safety manager or the safety committee. This would be taken care during the client setup phase. Once determined, the risk/priority setting doesn't typically change. This is a bit of a non-issue now however because your suggestion above would work for this as well.

      As for archiving, that is the plan. My concern is that I will have to have at least three years of data available at all times. There is a possibility that I could end up with 1.5 million records in the findings table should I actually have 100 clients. I guess I will worry about this later. I could always move a table or two to a SQL server I guess.

      Thanks again. BTW Steve, I will propably want to consult with you when I get a little furtehr along. I live a few miles down 580.

      Anyone else have any suggestions?

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        #4
        Re: Database Design Question - Pro's Advice NEEDED!

        Robert,
        The 3 years worth of data....what exactly does available mean. If it is just easy access to prior years for say reporting purposes for these years then I may have a way to do this....but it would mean that when looking at previous years data, current data would not be available.

        It basically involves a "snapshot" of your data in a zip format in which you can place your current data into a zip, load the snapshot (replace your current data!) and use it as a read-only environment for reporting purposes, then when done, reload the current data back in.

        If the above suits your scenario then you only have to have whatever current data that is necessary and all other years basically archived for whenever needed to save space and speed of the application.
        Mike
        __________________________________________
        It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
        It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
        Henry David Thoreau
        __________________________________________



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          #5
          Re: Database Design Question - Pro's Advice NEEDED!

          Thanks Mike. PERFECT.

          I have been so consumed by this project I hadn't even considered what "available" means. Yes, all I have to have is a snap shot for people to refer to. If the recorded safety findings haven't been resolved within a year or so, they will never be. I will keep up to two years available for viewing and modification. Additional years will be archived/PDF reports.

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