Supplier db design help

[L.]

Please help I would like to create a searchable database
to find my suppliers products by style, category,
material, price, etc. I have created the contact manager
part but how to I add all the details of the merchandise
they carry? It will contain a variety of suppliers from
different industries (ie: Floor covering-
carpet/wood/vinyl/ceramic tile/ Furniture-
wood/iron/upholstery) I would like to be able to search
for a particular style (ie.contemporary),material
(ie.wood) and price category (ie.low, med, high). Should
these be separate tables or separate databases? Any
advice would be appreciated.

 

[Rebecca Riordan]

What I'd do is set up tables for your categories (style, material, price
range, etc.), and then put links in the product tables. So, for example,
you might have

StyleCategories
StyleID
StyleName
StyleDescription

Products
ProductID
StyleID
.... whatever other fields are required

Using the categories tables eliminates problems with mis-spellings or people
making up categories on the fly, and it makes searching easy:

SELECT PRODUCTS.*
FROM PRODUCTS
WHERE StyleID = 1

HTH

--
Rebecca Riordan, MVP

Designing Relational Database Systems
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Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves,
for they shall never cease to be amused...

 

[Kevin3NF]

Sounds like you need a products table (description, style, price, etc.) and
a supplier table (SUpplier name, phone number, etc.)

If you already have the supplier info in the CM piece, just add the products
table. Eventually, you may decide to turn this into an ordering system as
well.