Is it a design problem?

[memphiszen]

Hi and thanks in advance! I'm working on a rental property database. I have property, unit, tenant, and lease tables (plus some more). But my main problem right now is this: How can I refer to a particular combination of property/unit in the lease table (or anywhere else for that matter)? I thought having separate property and unit tables would be better design. Should I just combine the two into one property/unit table? I figured that, for report/query purposes, it would be easier to have separate tables. Please help!!!

 

[anthonys]

Working in the property industry i would say you need to keep them seperate. You need to put the Property and Unit primary keys in the lease table and create a composite primary key.

your table would look something like this

Prop_ID
Unit_ID
Rental_Start_Date
.
.
.

The combination of Prop_id and Unit_ID would create a primary/unique key to identify individual records by. If you need to link lots of other tables to the lease then add a unique lease id on the table to link related child tables.

hope this helps

Ant

 

[neileg]

The combination of Prop_id and Unit_ID would create a primary/unique key to identify individual records by. If you need to link lots of other tables to the lease then add a unique lease id on the table to link related child tables.

You might have to include the Rental_Start_Date to make it unique. Over time you will have more than one lease for a unit.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Actually, you need to go one level deeper since a lease can be signed by multiple people.

 

[memphiszen]

Wow thanks guys. You've given me some great information to work with. I'll work on these tips and let you know how it's coming along.