I am helping a non-profit set up a database of resources for their clients. The ultimate goal is for a client to come in, state their need (eg. immigration lawyer), and for us to to be able to pull up a listing of lawyers (or pediatricians or....)
Some resources have multiple areas of specialty (immigration, criminal, civil, divorce for lawyers...or pediatrics, geriatric, kidney etc. for doctors)
I was thinking of allowing the person entering the data to store multiple values in the "specialty" field for the resource - but am worried about the design.
If multiple values are stored, will that prevent us from being able to run a query and pull up all the Lawyers who have immigration as a specialty?
Would it be better to have a resource guide that has 10 entries for a resource if the resource has 10 areas of specialty?
Seems so nice and easy for the data entry person to just pick from a combo-box for ALL the specialties at one time..
But, don't want to save time now only to have to re-do everything later..
Suggestions?
Some resources have multiple areas of specialty (immigration, criminal, civil, divorce for lawyers...or pediatrics, geriatric, kidney etc. for doctors)
I was thinking of allowing the person entering the data to store multiple values in the "specialty" field for the resource - but am worried about the design.
If multiple values are stored, will that prevent us from being able to run a query and pull up all the Lawyers who have immigration as a specialty?
Would it be better to have a resource guide that has 10 entries for a resource if the resource has 10 areas of specialty?
Seems so nice and easy for the data entry person to just pick from a combo-box for ALL the specialties at one time..
But, don't want to save time now only to have to re-do everything later..
Suggestions?