In my simple system there is a users table where user logins and passwords are stored as well as a customers table.
Users can be related to customers in 3 different ways.
1) Sales Representative to the customer
2) Lead generated by this customer
3) Customer account entered by this rep
Originally I planned on having all on the customers table:
customers.user_id customers.lead_id customers.entered_by_id.
With CakePHP is this the wrong way? How should it be designed?
I am 1 day new to CakePHP.
Without knowing more about what you are building and your requirements, this is what I would do:
users: contains just authentication info
users.role: useful for querying what role a specific user is (customer, sales rep, admin, etc.)
users.username
users.password
sales_representatives: contains sales rep data
sales_representatives.user_id: Links the sales rep data to a specific user
customers: contains customer data
customers.user_id: Links the user to a specific user (assuming you want them to log in, if not you can skip this)
customers.sales_representative_id: Links a customer to a sales rep. You might want to store a history of sales reps for a specific customer in a separate table, but this field is just the current sales rep.
customers.lead_id: Links to a specific lead this customer came from. Can be null in case it was inbound and not a lead, but will probably link to something useful.
leads: Contains lead data
leads.sales_representative_id: Contains the current sales rep for a given lead. As with the customers table, you might want to store a list of historical sales reps for a given lead in a separate table.
You might also optionally add a user_id to the lead table if a lead can login, but that might not be the case in your system.
What is your entered_by_id? That seems more like a lead-related id, in which case you may want to track that in the leads table (separate from the sales_representative_id).
Most of this stuff isn't CakePHP-related, though good schema planning will go a long way to making using CakePHP easy :)
Related
So I have two different tables, a users table and an articles table. The idea is to allow a user to rate an article, but only allow them to rate it once (possible change their existing rating too but I can come to that conclusion later).
As of now I just have the update value working to allow them to rate the article, but of course a user can rate an article as many times as they want.
To give you an idea of how I have everything working, when a user logins in, a session is created with their user information. So when they go to rate an article, I have the ability to check the user, I just don't know how to stop them from rating if they have already rated a specific article.
The user table consists of among other things their username and their unique ID
and the article table consists among other things the article contents, the article unique ID, and the articles rating.
I had some really sloppy ideas like when the user rates an article their ID gets stored into the articles row in some kind of "users who have rated" column, and then I can do a for loop or something to siphon out all the user IDs and then check if their ID exists in that articles entry but then each article would have a row with possibly hundreds or thousands of userIDs on it and there seems like there would be a more elegant way.
Any help or direction is appreciated :)
Create a UserRatings table which has foreign keys to the users table and the articles table, and stores a row linking the user to the article, and the rating they gave it and when it occurred.
Then if a user tried to rate it again you just check this table for the user ID/article ID combination before allowing it.
And then if you wanted got can do things like show the user a list of articles they have previously rated, etc
I'm looking to create a database for users with multi-level user rights and I don't know how to go about doing this. What I mean is that I want a manager of a business to be able to purchase my product; that person would be given Owner rights, but would also be able to grand additional users under that license--those people would be given Manager or User rights. Each level (as well as my level: Admin, and my staff: SuperUser) would obviously have individual rights/privileges).
What I'm asking, more specifically, is how to set up the database. For example, if my business is a corporate calendar/organizer, the Owner would set up departments, each with a Manager and many Users. What's the best and most efficient way to structure the database? Like, would each user (and each calendar entry) have to be associated with an ID that belongs to that specific Owner account? I'm just a little lost as to what the best way to organize the database to keep everything together, as I will have multiple different Owners with their own company structure under them.
I want to use MySQL and PHP.
I tried to make this as logical as possible. I think I'm making it too hard, but I am sure there is a standard that makes it easier....Thanks in advance.
At the very least every product/object whatsoever needs a foreign_key in its table, as for example the user's id. This is necessary and sets the relation from the product/object with the user.
And then it depends on how complex you want your system to become. An easy way would be to just use boolean columns in the user table, like an admin, an editor column and so on, with only true and false as values. In your code you could then use if and case to check if a user is an admin and show him parts of your app or not. Like a delete link for example. But you could also restrict updating and deleting to people whose user has a true value in the sufficient column.
The more complex route would include other id-fields in the tables which set a relation of something to something else. Like say you want the user to be a seller or a buyer, then you would add seller_id and buyer_id columns to the products table and check if the ids correspond with the user_id. But not "the" user_id, but a different user_id which you saved when the user created the product listing for example. This way you could guarantee, that besides your staff the user who created this thing has rights to edit it, too, because of the product's user_id being the same as his user_id (current user) when he is logged in to your system.
You could do even more complex relations but then you'd have to create another table and save other ids in it which relate certain users with say other users. In this table you save let's say a maintainer_id and a maintained_id, both have values of certain user_ids but this way you could make a relation between objects one user could change, though they belong to others. Or if you're talking of customers so the mainter_id would be allowed to write messages to those people with maintained_id, like if someone is a seller and the others are potential buyers.
I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you're looking for. From what I've gathered, it seems you want a database that holds permissions, users, and departments. In this very basic example I've created 3 tables. (assuming one user can only belong to one department)
You could set a foreign key in the users table which links to the primary key in the permissions table. The departments table would have the foreign key of the user_id.
You could base all of the logic on what each permission can do with your queries and application side logic.
(I can't embed images due to not having 'enough rep')
Scenario:
I have the task to add a new field on a form, which is called account number. When a user clicks submit, it goes and submit the appropriate data to the appropriate tables...not important.
Currently, the tables that are involved are 3: customers, orders, and accounts.
The tables structures are:
Customers -> customer_id (PK), ...
Orders -> order_id (PK), customer_id (FK), ...
Accounts -> order_id (PK), account_number, ...
As you can see, a customer can have many orders, and each orders can have only one account.
Even though in the table structure I added PK and FK, the database engine is actually MyISAM, which doesn't support transactions and relationships. To add "relationship" between tables, the previous developer(s) decided to add the appropriate PK and FK to "fake" the relationships between tables.
PLEASE NOTE: I did not have any part of creating the database and tables; it was given to me as is.
The business logic is that a customer can have only one account.
As far as I know, the way the tables are mapped out, a customer has more than one account.
Without redesigning the tables, it looks like that I don't have a choice.
This is what I have in mind without redesigning the tables:
Create a SQL script to clean up and update account numbers in accounts, so that each account will have the same account number for a particular customer...even though a customer has many oders.
Anywhere in the web app that can insert an account number, I have to check to see if the customer has an account number. If so, then come back with a message stating that the customer already has an account number...maybe select the account number or update it with a new one. If not, then insert it.
Any better options?
By the way, I'm using MySQL and PHP/CodeIgniter.
I am building a web application that has users and orders. I have a question about how to handle the relationship between the two.
An order belongs to a user. But here's the twist, a user can optionally choose to outsource an order to another user.
When an order is outsourced, the original user still remains the owner and only he can modify certain things like price, quantity etc on the order.
The user the order is outsourced to can view some of the order information and can update specific properties on the order like marking as fulfilled.
An outsourced order should show up on both users "orders index".
All the users are "equal" meaning on certain orders a user might be the owner and on others he might be fulfilling the order. A user can also fulfill his own orders.
It doesn't seem like a true many to many relationship as one of the users doesn't really own the order, he just has limited access to it.
What would be the simplest way to handle this order/users relationships? I would like to avoid using a complete permission system, is there a way to simply handle this with an "outsourced" table? How about having a user_id and outsourced_to field on the order table?
Thanks for your input!
If it's of any help, the application uses Laravel.
It seems like your Orders table has two separate relationships with the Users table.
Orders have an owns/owned-by relationship to Users.
Users(1) -- owns -- (*)Orders
One User can own many Orders. One Order is owned by only one User
Then there is a completely separate outsourced-to relationship between Orders and Users.
Orders(*) -- outsourced-to -- (1)Users
(Here I assume that an Order can only be outsourced to one other User. A User may have many Orders outsourced to them.)
The best way to represent this is to have the Orders table have a 'owner' foreign key column into the Users table and another 'outsourced_to' foreign key column also to the Users table.
What columns of Orders the outsourced user can edit will be controlled by the code and not by the dB.
A separate outsourced table will be needed only if Orders can be outsourced to multiple Users at the same time.
How about having a user_id and outsourced_to field on the order table?
Sounds good.
Also, think about a kind of de-normalization, like moving fields, which editable by "outsorced-to" user to separate table.
I may not be asking this in the best way possible but i will try my hardest. Thank you ahead of time for your help:
I am creating an enrollment website which allows an individual OR manager to enroll for medical testing services for professional athletes. I will NOT be using the site as a query DB which anybody can view information stored within the database. The information is instead simply stored, and passed along in a CSV format to our network provider so they can use as needed after the fact. There are two possible scenarios:
Scenario 1 - Individual Enrollment
If an individual athlete chooses to enroll him/herself, they enter their personal information, submit their payment information (credit/bank account) for processing, and their information is stored in an online database as Athlete1.
Scenario 2 - Manager Enrollment
If a manager chooses to enroll several athletes he manages/ promotes for, he enters his personal information, then enters the personal information for each athlete he wishes to pay for (name, address, ssn, dob, etc), then submits payment information for ALL athletes he is enrolling. This number can range from 1 single athlete, up to 20 athletes per single enrollment (he can return and complete a follow up enrollment for additional athletes).
Initially, I was building the database to house ALL information regardless of enrollment type in a single table which housed over 400 columns (think 20 athletes with over 10 fields per athlete such as name, dob, ssn, etc).
Now that I think about it more, I believe create multiple tables (manager(s), athlete(s)) may be a better idea here but still not quite sure how to go about it for the following very important reasons:
Issue 1
If I list the manager as the parent table, I am afraid the individual enrolling athlete will not show up in the primary table and will not be included in the overall registration file which needs to be sent on to the network providers.
Issue 2
All athletes being enrolled by a manager are being stored in SESSION as F1FirstName, F2FirstName where F1 and F2 relate to the id of the fighter. I am not sure technically speaking how to store multiple pieces of information within the same table under separate rows using PHP. For example, all athleteswill have a first name. The very basic theory of what i am trying to do is:
If number_of_athletes >1,
store F1FirstName in row 1, column 1 of Table "Athletes";
store F1LastName in row 1, column 2 of Table "Athletes";
store F2FirstName in row 2, column 1 of Table "Athletes";
store F2LastName in row 2, column 2 of table "Athletes";
Does this make sense? I know this question is very long and probably difficult so i appreciate the guidance.
You should create two tables: managers and athletes
The athletes table would contain a column named manager_id which would contain the id of the manager who signed the athlete up or NULL if the athlete signed himself up.
During output, create two CSV files (one for each table).
Further reading:
Defining Relationships
If you will retain the names for a future submission, then you should use a different design. You should also consider if a manager can also be an athlete. With those points in mind, consider having three tables: PEOPLE, REGISTRATION and REGISTRATION_ATHLETE. PEOPLE contains all athletes and manager. REGISTRATION is the Master table that has all the information for a submission of one or more individuals for testing. REGISTRATION_ATHLETE has one row for every Athlete to be tested.
People table:
---------------
People_ID
Type (A for Athlete, M for Manager B for Both)
First Name
Last Name
Birthdate
other columns of value
Registration table:
-------------------
Registration_ID
Registration_Date
People_ID (person requesting registration - Foreign Key to PEOPLE)
Payment columns....
Registration_Athlete table:
---------------------------
Registration_ID (Foreign Key to REGISTRATION)
People_ID (Foreign Key to PEOPLE)
I am not a mysql person, but I would think this simple type of structure would work.
Finally, storing credit card information is problematic as it runs into PCI (Payment Card Institute) rules, which you will want to avoid (think complicated and expensive). Consider processing payments through a third party, such as Google Checkout, etc. and not capturing the credit card.
Well based on your comment reply and what you are looking for. You could do this.
Create one database for Registration.
Create the columns ID, name, regDate, isManager, ManagerID (Whatever Else you need).
When a Manager enrolls set isManager to 1 and form a hash based on name and regdate, that would be the Managers Unique ID that would be added to all of the Athletes entries that the manager registers.
When a lone athlete registers don't worry about the ID and just set isManager to 0.
I think I may be oversimplifying it though. Wouldn't be the greatest for forming different types of queries but it should be alright if you are trying to minimize your db footprint