Trying to simplify db - using Partminer data
As Chief architect of the PartMiner data systems, I can probably assist you. Some questions: 1) Are you an active customer of PartMiner? 2) If so, what is your license and access type? 3) Which databases are you licensed to be using? 4) Are you using any of our integration tools, XML server, or client toolkits or simply web page/HTML? 5) Are you propogating PartMiner data in your internal system(s)?
Thanks
Is schema flexibility the answer?
Quote:
1) they change their attribute names from time to time, and 2) they do not use the same name across categories for seemingly common attributes (e.g.: tolerance or temperature).
You need some kind of flexibility within the data and schema. I'm wondering whether encoding the various attributes to numbers linked to lookup tables would help. So perhaps...
TABLE 1:
attrib_uniq_id.
TABLE 2:
attrib_uniq_id. | attrib_name_link_id
TABLE 3:
attrib_name_link_id | attrib_name
So TABLE 1's attribute data could be
2
3
TABLE 2
2 | 4
3 | 5
TABLE 3
4 | Attribute name 1
4 | Attribute name 2
4 | Attribute name 3
5 | Attribute name 1
5 | Attribute name 2
It you are using MS Access it would mean some hijinx with ADODB and maybe an unbound form. You could subform it though.
Hope this is of some help. :)
I'm currently building a system where my company's parameters/criteria changes so often that my finance table is literally two columns: One for the amount and one for the financial type. I can add types whenever they need without having to add new columns on their whim. ;)