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#31
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Hostel Database Setup
There is some professional software that already exists. I googled on
"hostel software" and these were on the first page. I chose them because they both seem to have demo versions. Even if you have someone program a database for you, it is good to have some standard to judge it by. Also, you may find they have some functionality that would be nice, other than just for tracking your clients. http://www.hotel-software.com/ http://www.dustysoftware.co.nz/ |
#32
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Hostel Database Setup
If you're of the opinion that database design via forum is unwise, then
perhaps your best bet is to unsubscribe from a forum where that is the purpose. "Craig Alexander Morrison" wrote in message ... I am of the "published" opinion the database design by email is dangerous if not actually irresponsible. I am also quite happy to point out when someone is giving information that will harm a design, such as your lack of measures, which I had initially only suspected, to prevent data duplication and endanger integrity and consistency. I have since had to correct a series of further errors from you and me (g). -- Slainte Craig Alexander Morrison Crawbridge Data (Scotland) Limited "Amy Blankenship" wrote in message ... "Craig Alexander Morrison" wrote in message ... Gees Louise. All she wants to do is track what countries her clients are from... Well no what the OP actually wants is.... To present real and true financial and marketing data to perspective buyers of my business. To answer my guests questions, eg, "How many guests have you had?" "What country are the majority of your guests from?" "How many Swiss visitors have you had?" "Are most of your guests under 30?" etc. Did you read that, I think the OP is more concerned about data consistency than you are. And I think you're not at all concerned about actually answering Andrea's question. If you were, you would address her and her question rather than expending a lot of energy trying to demonstrate that I gave her a wrong answer. If you are SO concerned for her and her data integrity, post a solution she can use rather than nitpicking at mine. Otherwise stay out of the way so I can direct my energy to helping her fine tune rather than responding to your posts which have ZERO point in the context of this thread other than to hear yourself talk. |
#33
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Hostel Database Setup
If you're of the opinion that database design via forum is unwise, then
perhaps your best bet is to unsubscribe from a forum where that is the purpose. While people like you are giving advice on database design I hope that many will point out your amateur errors and profound lack of knowledge. I would have though with such a profound lack of knowledge you may wish to educate yourself, perhaps, and sadly, not. Learn from good "non-product" specific books about relational database design not from dodgy websites. Check the points I raised with you in these books and see if I am wrong. You seemed more concerned with my motives, well my motives are transparent I wanted to correct serious errors in the advice you were giving. I will be around from time to time and will happily criticise points that are just plain wrong. I gave you the benefit of the doubt on my first post, I have no doubts about you at all now. Relational Data Analysis requires a thorough understanding of the problem domain not some person making wild assumptions like you have done on this thread. Database Design by email is dangerous because you have to ensure that the Client is disclosing all the relevant information, they may not know that they are not. The collection of sources for the RDA process will throw up a lot of questions that the skilled developer will ask of the Client. You do not have appear to have the necessary rigour to be advising people about database designs. Throughout this thread you have failed to address a series of salient points, I had hoped you had accepted them, but it would appear you are not equipped to argue your point not that it would have made sense anyway as you are wrong, and I only looked at one table and you sadly confirmed that you would have taken no steps to void data duplication and cared little for the data integrity and consistency of the database. Your failings can be corrected with a little bit of education, I hope you will consider this. As I said at the beginning I do not want to get into the Surrogate vs Natural Key debate, but you will find that most of the people who do advocate the use of Surrogate Keys (in all tables) will also ensure that the Natural Key (when available) is implemented as a Unique Non-Null Index. -- Slainte Craig Alexander Morrison Crawbridge Data (Scotland) Limited "Amy Blankenship" wrote in message ... |
#34
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Hostel Database Setup
Amy Blankenship wrote: That's the point I was trying to make when I said, "Another approach could be to record their passport number, with perhaps a different identiifer for locals." That's one way to do it. What if someone changes his/her citizenship :-)? As well as geography, nationality can be complicated by issues of ethnic origin, culture and politics. That's why I suggested the OP could use country of permanent residence. The same person can hold more than one passport, of course. It's all about the level of trust e.g. sometimes the police are content to take your name and address, other times they want to see your driving licence and in more extreme cases they want fingerprints and DNA samples. Jamie. -- |
#35
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Hostel Database Setup
And then how do you tell Jean Dupont of Paris from Jean DuPont of Dijon?
"Jamie Collins" wrote in message oups.com... Amy Blankenship wrote: That's the point I was trying to make when I said, "Another approach could be to record their passport number, with perhaps a different identiifer for locals." That's one way to do it. What if someone changes his/her citizenship :-)? As well as geography, nationality can be complicated by issues of ethnic origin, culture and politics. That's why I suggested the OP could use country of permanent residence. The same person can hold more than one passport, of course. It's all about the level of trust e.g. sometimes the police are content to take your name and address, other times they want to see your driving licence and in more extreme cases they want fingerprints and DNA samples. Jamie. -- |
#36
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Hostel Database Setup
Amy Blankenship wrote: how do you tell Jean Dupont of Paris from Jean DuPont of Dijon? A more pertinent question might be, how do you know that Jean Dupont/US passport number x/French is not the same person as Jean Dupont/EU passport number y/French? To a hotelier trying their best to determine how many individuals pass through their doors, counting individual passports is probably good enough. The canny hotelier may look the client straight in the eye, ask them if they've stayed there before and monitor their body language. The US immigration services, on the other hand, may be looking into a person's eye to perform a retina scan... As I say, it comes down to the required level of trust. Jamie. -- |
#37
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Hostel Database Setup
Well, this postings seems to have caused quite a stir....36 responses and
counting!!!...but yet most of the stuff is going right over my head, and as a few of you commented...I didn't want my posting to become the brunt of a theoretical battle! After continuing my research, I am now thinking that perhaps my design problems might be resolved by making my Guest Info and Bookings Table, many to many relationship. Eg, 1 room can have more than one guest at any given time and 1 guest can have many different bookings in the course of any given time. If the consensus is yes, I should have many to many, are there any suggestions as to how I can manipulate my existing setup to fit a new one? Please keep the answers easy, I am a little dislexic when it comes to all this theory and new vocabulary. If you prefer, I can start a new post with my new question. Thanks so much! "andreainpanama" wrote: Thanks to all of you for all of your help. I have a small backpackers hostel and I am currently working on a database to help me keep track of all of my guests. These are the two basic design issues that I am running into. Issue 1. Sometimes, there are 2 or 3 guests staying to gether in a private room (as opposed to individuals staying in dorm beds which are always registered separately). Since we rent the private rooms by the room, groups are considered to be one booking and one stay in one room, even though there are three individuals. I want to keep track not only of the guest that is the official guest in my register (the one who pays for the room), but the 2 people who are accompanying him. Why? Because I a) want to know how many different individuals have walked through my doors b) I want to know the nationalities of every individual and c) Many times one of the people who have stayed as a friend of a guest in a private room, will come back on their own a few days later, and then they might become the paying guest or an individual in a dorm. Therefore, I want a way that every single person has a client ID number. I have managed to do this rather haphazardly...by having a table with the following fields, MAIN GUEST 1(TITLE) clientid1 lastname1 firstname1 nationality1 etc1 FRIEND2 (TITLE) clientid2 lastname2 firstname2 nationality2 etc2 FRIEND 3 (TITLE) clientid3 lastname3 firstname3 nationality3 etc3 And I just go in and manually assign a number to each person. Tried using subforms, could't get them to work. Didn't use autonumbers because I wasn't sure how to deal with the following Issue 2 below..... Issue 2. Repeat Bookings. I currently have a booking table which allows each guest to have a booking with dates, prices, room choice, etc. How do I deal with repeat bookings of the same person? How do I structure tables and forms to deal with the infinite amount of booking data that might apply to one guest since I have no idea if a person will come back 0 times, or 3 times or 65 times, or if they will be in the same room the next night, etc. How do I limit my table and form size? How can I pull up a client number say 55, and then enter new booking records? Should I do this with individual booking tables? And once again, are my problems solve with autonumbers? Finally, let me explain why I want this data... To present real and true financial and marketing data to perspective buyers of my business. To answer my guests questions, eg, "How many guests have you had?" "What country are the majority of your guests from?" "How many Swiss visitors have you had?" "Are most of your guests under 30?" etc. I would really appreciate someone's opinions. (PS, I am a relative newbie, and know nothing about programming language.) AndreainPanama you can see my webpage at www.purplehousehostel.com |
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