Login Tracking Table

[Robin Lawrie]

I am designing an Access database that will eventually be moved to a SQL
server and be web-enabled.

I would like to be able to track login times for users who exist in a users
table and have created a login tracking table for this purpose.

My question concerns the relationships of these and other tables based on
the userid field.

The primary key for the users table is called userid. This is then linked to
a field in the login tracking table.

The userid primary key is also currently linked to a user details table with
a 1-to-1 relationship (I split this up since some users will need their
details stored and other's won't and didn't want to store blank info in the
users table - is this good or bad?)

Is it a bad idea to have several tables linked by just the one ID, in this
case the userid linked to the login tracking and user details table?

Thanks,

Robin.

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

Robin,

If you are planning to upsize to SQL server, I assume this is going to be a
rather large database, right? With this in mind, the storage size increase
by using one flat users table, even if some users' details are not
populated, will be next to nothing proportionally.
Example: 100 user with no details x 6 null fields x 40 characters per field
= 24KB (actually just under 23.5).
In my opinion, this would never justify the increased design complexity.

HTH,
Nikos

 

[Robin Lawrie]

Hi Nikos,

Thanks for the example....that has illustrated very clearly that I am making
the design too complicated and the space savings are neglible.....

Robin.