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The very first thing you should do is study "database normalization." This will help you in designing where you need to go. But let me make a comment or two from your explanation.
No. You CANNOT allow this to happen. However, let me do some quick inferential analysis. You wouldn't have said this unless you were running out of room in the field that holds stock numbers. Which means you have a small stock number and a lot of stock. The positive spin on this is that you have business growth. (Congratulations.) And now you are seeing what is commonly called "growing pains." The CORRECT way to do this is to expand the size of the stock number field. However, if you have RI enabled, you can't do this so easily.
I am betting that you are "under the gun" to get this done sooner than yesterday, but you have a technical limitation and a major rewrite ahead of you. It is time to consider that your original efforts were made from a migratory perspective (from Lotus) but the new reality of growth means it is time to consider a new set of structures.
In fact, the best way to maintain the relationships among your data would be to redesign your structures and then do an export/import sequence into tables where your fields that were restricting you in the older design have more room for more variations.
Some other things you can do in the forum involve its Search function. When you are at the top of a forum page, there is a long blue ribbon just underneath the section that shows your login ID and the topic on which you are focused. On that ribbon, 3rd from the right, is the Search option. Look up some topics here, do some reading, and see how folks approach these kinds of problems.
Look up: "Natural Keys" and "Surrogate keys" to see some long-winded discussions on what each one is and why you would choose one over the other.
Look up: "Business Model" to see about design issues in terms of making your database match the reality of your business. From what I see, you are perilously close to a situation in which "the tail will wag the dog." That is, you are close to having the limitations of your database constrain your business decisions.
Look up: "Database normalization" for topics on how to design normalized tables. These normalized tables will help you where you have things that depend on other things, or things that describe the details of other things.
Look up: "Inventory control" - since a large part of your problem seems to be how to manage your burgeoning stock of things to sell.
Here is the question you have to ask yourself. Look at it from this viewpoint. When you have a used car that starts to need more expensive maintenance, and the frequency of that need starts to increase, at what point do you break down and buy a new one?
The computer equivalent here is, at what point will the idea to continually patch up and tweak a complex and (by your own admission) poorly designed database no longer become cost effective? You are facing the back half of that old adage: If you don't have time to do it right the first time, how will you EVER find time to do it again?
No. You CANNOT allow this to happen. However, let me do some quick inferential analysis. You wouldn't have said this unless you were running out of room in the field that holds stock numbers. Which means you have a small stock number and a lot of stock. The positive spin on this is that you have business growth. (Congratulations.) And now you are seeing what is commonly called "growing pains." The CORRECT way to do this is to expand the size of the stock number field. However, if you have RI enabled, you can't do this so easily.
I am betting that you are "under the gun" to get this done sooner than yesterday, but you have a technical limitation and a major rewrite ahead of you. It is time to consider that your original efforts were made from a migratory perspective (from Lotus) but the new reality of growth means it is time to consider a new set of structures.
In fact, the best way to maintain the relationships among your data would be to redesign your structures and then do an export/import sequence into tables where your fields that were restricting you in the older design have more room for more variations.
Some other things you can do in the forum involve its Search function. When you are at the top of a forum page, there is a long blue ribbon just underneath the section that shows your login ID and the topic on which you are focused. On that ribbon, 3rd from the right, is the Search option. Look up some topics here, do some reading, and see how folks approach these kinds of problems.
Look up: "Natural Keys" and "Surrogate keys" to see some long-winded discussions on what each one is and why you would choose one over the other.
Look up: "Business Model" to see about design issues in terms of making your database match the reality of your business. From what I see, you are perilously close to a situation in which "the tail will wag the dog." That is, you are close to having the limitations of your database constrain your business decisions.
Look up: "Database normalization" for topics on how to design normalized tables. These normalized tables will help you where you have things that depend on other things, or things that describe the details of other things.
Look up: "Inventory control" - since a large part of your problem seems to be how to manage your burgeoning stock of things to sell.
Here is the question you have to ask yourself. Look at it from this viewpoint. When you have a used car that starts to need more expensive maintenance, and the frequency of that need starts to increase, at what point do you break down and buy a new one?
The computer equivalent here is, at what point will the idea to continually patch up and tweak a complex and (by your own admission) poorly designed database no longer become cost effective? You are facing the back half of that old adage: If you don't have time to do it right the first time, how will you EVER find time to do it again?
