Database Design Scorecard

[gallidor]

I have a working database that I am "tweaking" and would like advice on best
practices for table design. Scorecards are composed of multiple measures
often with multiple data types. Currently I have a text field in one table
that holds the results of all our measures. This works fine for reports
because I have assigned each measure a "type", i.e. percent, currency etc.
and use this related field to format the result in my report via an if
statement. I am not sure that this is best practice though, because
obviously when the data is entered I can't utilize input masks or validation
rules. I don't really want to have a separate field or table for each data
type though. The first seems wasteful and the second seems like a lot of
extra work. Thoughts and feedback would be appreciated.

 

[jahoobob via AccessMonster.com]

With today's fast computers and massive hard drives wastful should not be a
worry. Ease of getting data in to and out of the db should be the primary
concern. Break the one field into many. You won't have to enter in the
"type" (percent, currency, etc.)