Forum Discussion

IvanWeiss's avatar
IvanWeiss
Qrew Captain
6 years ago

Recommendation on best way to create hierarchy between client contacts

I had a user request a good feature for my app.  They want to be able to pull a report on a contact showing all of the projects they are associated with.  This way if they are meeting with a client th...
Relationships
EvanWestbrook's avatar
EvanWestbrook
Qrew Cadet
6 years ago
Ivan,

If I understand correctly, it sounds like you have a couple of many to many table situations.

  1. Many Contacts can have many Supervisors, and many Supervisors can have many Direct Reports
    1. Mark could report to both Larry, VP of Sales, and Cindy, VP of Operations
  2. Many Direct Reports can have many Projects, and many Projects can have many Direct Reports working on them
    1. Trucking Accounts can be worked on by Mark and Ashley, and Ashley can be working on Trucking Accounts and Baseball Accounts

With many to many relationships, a "join" table might be more appropriate than relating a table to itself. For example, maybe you would have a "Supervisor Direct Reports" table to track hierarchies, and a "Employee Projects" table to track which employees are on which projects.

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Evan Westbrook
PRIME Developer
Harder Mechanical Contractors Inc.
Portland OR
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IvanWeiss's avatar
IvanWeiss
Qrew Captain
6 years ago
Evan, thanks for the response!  not quite right though.  I am not referring to an internal hierarchy.  I am referring to a client hierarchy.  For example our largest client has the following Hierarchy:

  • President of the Division
  • Multiple Regional Vice Presidents reporting to the President
  • Multiple District Managers reporting to each Regional Vice President
  • Multiple General Managers reporting to each District Manager


So in essence a pyramid type of setup with (4) layers.  If I pick any contact towards the top of the list I should be able to see all of their opportunities underneath them.

So if I view the President, I see the entire pyramid.  If I pick a RVP I get the DM and GM opportunities reporting up to that RVP, etc.

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Ivan Weiss
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  • EvanWestbrook's avatar
    EvanWestbrook
    Qrew Cadet
    6 years ago
    Ivan,

    Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to assume your client list table is called "Clients."

    I think an additional table to track hierarchies is still the direction you want to go (maybe a separate table for each hierarchy step if it's going to remain fairly static.) If you relate Clients to Clients, you'll have to add a new table relationship for each additional field (not fun.) Having Parent records automatically know their Children or Grandchildren could get tricky, but once you figure that out, it will be simpler to manage.

    From there, you can set up report links to display the information your form. Lookup fields counting the total # of Child records for each hierarchy step can then feed form rules to display different aspects of the Client form.
    ​

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    Evan Westbrook
    PRIME Developer
    Harder Mechanical Contractors Inc.
    Portland OR
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    • IvanWeiss's avatar
      IvanWeiss
      Qrew Captain
      6 years ago
      Evan, so I did not quite follow you.  The table is called Contacts.

      I was assuming I could self relate it and just do it that way.
      But you are saying do a separate table and name it lets say Contact Hierarchy.  I am thinking it should relate to the Contacts table twice
      The first one being the Employee and the second one being the Manager?  Is that correct?  And use that to report out the work since it is linking people?  I guess what I was somewhat confused by is each Manager can have several Employees reporting to them.

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      Ivan Weiss
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      • EvanWestbrook's avatar
        EvanWestbrook
        Qrew Cadet
        6 years ago
        Ivan,

        I think we're on the same page with how Contact Hierarchy would work. I did want to touch on some items behind the recommendation for a second table, as I think this one could go either way.

        Item 1: Data Structure Best Practices
        A good goal for many databases is 3rd Normal Form. Essentially, this just means that the tables in a database are set up such that a piece of data only exists in one place.

        I should note that this is a "Recommended Best" practice and not "The Only" practice. Design goals should be balanced with business needs for the database. Examples where a database might not be fully "normalized" are typically related to performance (reporting databases, data warehouses, query response times, end user workflows, etc.) 

        QuickBase University has some great notes on this if you'd like more information.

        Item 2: This use case could go either way
        A second table vs. relating a table to itself is sometimes a "to-may-to" "to-mah-to" situation. In the below image, Options 1 and 2 can more or less do the same thing.

        We even have some self-related tables like Option 2 in some of our production apps.

        Item 3:  Option 1 vs. Option 2
        When designing databases and writing code, efficiency, performance, and simplicity are important. Readability, maintainability, and debugability are also important.  In my experience, Option 2 relationships in our apps have been difficult to debug and difficult to explain when on boarding new team members. It's less clear what the table relationship does at a quick glace.

        Option 1 is also closer to 3rd Normal Form, and it gives us a lot of potential benefits: The hierarchy relationships between Contacts exist in a single location. It's more clear to any app users how Contacts are related to each other. It sets the foundation for future business needs (i.e. allowing other tables to use this contact hierarchy.) Updating future Contact Hierarchies (i.e. Bob gets promoted from DM to RVP) is easier.

        Here's an example of how you might set it up:


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        Evan Westbrook
        PRIME Developer
        Harder Mechanical Contractors Inc.
        Portland OR
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