User Fields Best Practice

Question

I have users (of course) and then a 'Team Members' Table. The reason for that table is I have other info (phone numbers, employee IDs, etc) that I want associated with each user.

I then have a table of Service Orders. Multiple people get assigned to each SO (some project managers, some estimators, scope writers, etc). About 6 people are assigned. It seems there are a number of ways to go about this but the two I am looking at are:

6 user fields: Make custom lists for each user field.
or
6 related fields where the dropdown is a filtered report to limit the list.

Is one a better practice? Will I regret one down the line? Is there a different option that is even more suited for this use (I thought about a many to many relationship with a 3rd table, but I want all 6 people to be in an approval workflow so I'm not sure I like that option for that).

Secondary Question: If I have a group 'Estimators' and I want to just assign them to a role, can I do that somehow? So that any notification or trigger uses all group emails?
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Mike Tamoush
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MarkShnierYou · Answer

It's an insightful quesiton.I did a major app for a client and we went with the "six fields" based on their respective functions on that project.  While a many to many Resource assignments table might sound more elegant, in fact, you then will need to float up who the Project Manager is and who the Scope Writer is anyways, so that is a lot of formuals.Also note that you cannot control Role permissions access to parents based the Role access to child records.  So for example may want to say limit access to view to only where the current user is a child team member on that project. That will not work due to how Quick Base calculates. It starts with the parent and then decides there is no access, therefore it cannot calculate any thing  about the children for summary fields, so no access to Parents.So just  KISS and slot in 6 fields for 6 user field titles on the Project.------------------------------Mark Shnier (YQC)Quick Base Solution ProviderYour Quick Base Coachhttp://QuickBaseCoach.commark.shnier@gmail.com------------------------------

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