Adding Accessories Directly to MasterTable - D-Tools Forum

fryeguy · 10-29-2009, 07:37 PM

I have a bunch of items that need a consistent group of accessories. I'm considering adding them directly in the Accessories Table of my local MasterTable.

I see that each time an accessory is added to an item it is added to the list in the Accessory table. For instance I added the CA eWaste fee to a bunch of TVs yesterday and now it shows up a bunch of times in the table associated with the TVs.

Good idea or bad idea?

It looks pretty easy to me. I know, backup. But any other concerns? Am I missing something?

UPDATE: How about the GMTDateTime & GUID? Exactly what do these do here? Can I ignore?

**Kevin Mikelonis** · 10-29-2009, 07:58 PM

Before SI5 MMPD, we built databases this way.

It takes some care and double checking, but works fine.

We would clear the GUID columns and use the date we built the table for the Date/Time column.

I am unsure what the implications are in SI5 of this method, but we have taken mastertables built in SI4, and opened them in SI5, built projects and seen no issues.

fryeguy · 10-29-2009, 09:36 PM

Thanks. I did a small test of this and it looks good. I left both the GUID & Date/Time fields empty. I was able to sync. Everything looks good. My guess is there could be some issues when you check for data conflicts in MMPD for other users. We'll see.

fryeguy · 10-29-2009, 10:31 PM

Looks like the field OrderInList within the Accessory table has no effect and accessories show up according to their ID. Right?

It would be really nice to have common accessories for common items such as TVs show up in a specified order...

grichards · 10-29-2009, 10:45 PM

have you verified that you can add accessories to a drawing when there is no GUID in the table? it sounds like you're adding non-drawn items, but im thinking this might be an issue. I've been trying to come up with a way to "batch add" accessories directly to the database, but haven't taken the time to fully pursue a solution. I would think there's a function using MS SQL in Access to generate a GUID.

please keep up comments, ideas, or issues on this thread

fryeguy · 10-30-2009, 07:23 PM

I updated about 100 items with accessories added from Access with no GUID value.
I just tested in Visio dropping some of these items and then all accessories onto a plan page. Zero problems to report.

grichards · 10-30-2009, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by fryeguy

...Zero problems to report...

good to hear. i'll probably start testing soon as well.

**Kevin Mikelonis** · 10-30-2009, 08:01 PM

Time tested on our end in-house and hundreds of client projects.

I do wish the column for controlling the order that the accessories present actually worked, but the software seems to ignore it.