The original message from Jenny Hansell included this text...
>My legacy data has three columns: firstname, last name, and firstname2,
>which is causing the problem. If person2 has the same last name as person
>one, I just put their first name in firstname2; if they have a different
>last name, I put both in firstname2. ebase interprets the latter scenario
>fine, but the former scenario confuses it. Here's what happens.
Jenny,
I have just gone through a pretty complicated data transition from a legacy
database to Ebase, and we found it easiest to translate the existing
"firstname" and "lastname" fields into two completely separate
"firstname/lastname" fields each corresponding to one person ("firstnameA",
"lastnameA", "firstnameB", "lastnameB"). The "A" fields represent person 1
and the "B" fields represent person 2. If there are two persons on the
record with the same last name, both "lastnameA" and "lastnameB" contain
the same last name.
It did take some work to get the data into this format, but it really
seemed the most advantageous approach...
In general, I find that smooth automation really works most easily when the
definition of a field is set and doesn't change from one record to
another. It is much more difficult to automate data-handling when a field
means one thing for one record and another thing on another record. Cases
where the interpretation of a field value depends on the value held by
another field, or on a more complex interpretation of conditions on that
record really imply that the field doesn't have a constant
definition. The circumstance you describe seems to fit that
description. When you have to use multiple "if" clauses when explaining in
English what the field means, I usually take it as a tip off that that
reconstruction of that field should be considered.
**************************************************************
Larry F. Bednar
Consulting in Statistics, Quality, Data Management
Portland, OR 503.493.8542 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**************************************************************
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