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Old 06-07-2007, 06:59 PM
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zargron zargron is online now
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Join Date: 05-16-2007
Location: Grassy Knoll
Posts: 149
Item Relationships

OK - if I've digested your comments correctly, I reckon I've grappled with this situation several times in the past. In normative terms, for a particular "entity", I've created a "relationship" table and a "relationship type" table. Any "entity" can have any "type" of relationship with any other entity. Furthermore, setting the relationship in one direction can optionally (usually) automatically establish the appropriate relationship in the opposite direction, eg. setting "item A belonging to assembly Y" implies that "assembly Y has a sub-item A".

Perhaps in UR, when logically linking, users could optionally establish the nature of the outward and inward relationship. The "Item Parents" pane could be replaced with a "Related Items" pane. If the user NEVER availed themselves of the facility to establish the nature of the relationship, then all entries would always say "Item title - Parent", eg:
"JOB 5985 : Parent"

If however the nature of the relationship was used from time to time, then you would get something like:
"JOB 5985 : Parent"
"Part A : Sub-Item"
"Part B : Sub-Item"
"Frank : Primary Technician"

Pretty Rolls Royce functionality being proposed and of course I humbly invite criticism since I've just rattled this off without thinking about it all that hard...
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