can this be pulled out correctly?

Anon

Hi all,

I'm currently writing some registration software that will do some reporting on the information it receives. One thing the client wants is to see totals of each way a user can register for their event. The ways are: online, phone, and onsite (register at the event). Now, each user can register multiple times (for seperate itinerary items) using each of the three ways to register. what the client wants to know is how they registered FIRST. Trransactions are separated into batches, so we will have the phone registrants seperated from the online ones, etc.

My question is: will i be able to safely determine the method used be each user to register their FIRST time? If so, how would I do that? I'll leave a sample of my table structure below.

Transactions

Pid - primary key
attID - foreign key
BatchID - Foreign key

Timestamp
Amount

BatchTypes
--------------
btypeID - primary key
BatchType

Batch
-------------
BatchID - primary key
BatchType - foreign key
ReceivedDate
DepositDate

thanks everyone....
-Phil Schroeder

crislewis

Yes, IF...

The calendars and clocks for all channels are synchronised.
The off-line channel records are entered real-time or times transcribed into the database are entered accurately

In simple terms your query on apples must be sure there are no pears. ..

One thing that occurs to me is the three channels you list could in theory all be on-line. e.g. 'on-line' - the client does it, 'phone' - the call centre does it 'on-line', 'at event' the registratio desk does it 'on-line'. You could also get the client to do it 'on-line' at the event too.

The use of 'batches' implies some off-line data capture. In this case my first two points above are in play.

Cris

Anon

Assuming that all times are sync'd...

In truth, all info is recorded "online". Online registration is broken down into 3 sections: self-serve (user registers online before event), phone (user phones in an order, where a temp will ring it up online), and on-site (user registers online at event). the first two are stored in separate batches determined by what user type enters the info (admins have different access than self-servers). and the last one goes into the onsite batch, determined by date of registration.

can i get some sort of rough draft of the type of query i'll need to set up?