Database Relations Single Dialogs Workspace

Use this workspace to review information about the tables and fields in the Maconomy database.

You cannot change any information in this workspace, but you can use the Initialize Instance Keys action to activate instance key registration on the current table, if it is not already active.

In the Database Relations tab, you can browse through the relations in the database. The Database Fields sub-tab lists the fields identified by the current relation, showing various information on the individual fields.

When instance key registration is active for a relation, Maconomy assigns an instance key value to each existing entry in the relation, and whenever entries are created, Maconomy also assigns instance key values to them.

An instance key value is a number that is assigned to a given database entry and is unique within the whole Maconomy database. This means that no two database entries, regardless of the relations to which they belong, can have the same instance key value. This allows you to identify entries by means of one number, whereas in the case of regular database relation keys, multiple entries that belong to different relations can have identical key values, and the identification is made through fields with different names and types, sometimes using several fields. Instance keys thus make it easier to refer directly to a given entry in any relation without having to specify a relation name and several key values. Note that the functionality of regular database key fields is unaffected by the activation of instance keys, because instance keys simply function as an optional way of identifying entries across relations, instead of just within individual relations.

For example, instance keys are used in the Users workspace. As described in the User Types workspace, users can be based on information in other Maconomy workspaces, and an instance key is therefore used to refer to the database entry on which an individual the user was based.

However, to avoid unnecessary processing and system workload, instance key registration is by default only used on certain relations. For each relation for which you want to be able to refer to instance keys, you must initiate the registration in this workspace.