Hello,

I need some design help for one of my tables. My application consists of numerous tabs. A few of these tabs have a Submitted By drop-down. These drop-downs are populated using the entries in the Contacts table. Some of the rows from this table should only appear in the Submitted By drop-downs of particular tabs. How do I indicate which row should appear on which tab?

Here are my ideas:
Option 1) Add a new Tab column. In this column have a comma-separated list of the tabs on which this entry should appear in the drop-down.
Option 2) Add columns for each tab and then flag them as 'Y' or 'N' depending on whether or not that entry should appear in that tab's Submitted By drop-down.
Option 3) ???

Which is the better option and why? Is there some other option that is better than those?

Thanks for any help.

Donna

Hey,

The drop-down fields, do they have the same values always, or mostly the same values?

Brian

No, it is a list of people's names. For example, there might be a row for 'Joe Blow', but 'Joe Blow' should only appear on Tab 1 and Tab 2, but not Tab 3.

I don't like either option. But if you want to use one of them the first is better.


My solution:

You have a Table of Contacts
You need a list/table of Tabs
You need a table of Contacts-Tabs

Each row in Contacts-Tabs would list a ContactID and a TabID.

Using this example:
Contact 1 can be on tab 1 and 3
Contact 2 can be on tab 2 and 3
Contact 3 can be on tab 1
Contact 4 Can be on tab 2

Your table would be:

ContactID TabID
    1 1
    1 3
    2 2
    2 3
    3 1
    4 2

Then you select ContactID for the proper TAB your on joined with the Contact table (which has an ID field right?!) so you can get the list of names for any specified tab.

Doing this you don't need to add more Columns if you add more tabs. You don't need to String build/split to find out which names you need (and loop through then) and you get to put the "selection" of the right data in the database, where it belongs... Rather than getting everything back and then figuring it out in code.


Hal Levy
Web Developer, PDI Inc.

NOT a Wiley/Wrox Employee