best practice for lookup

say i have a customer.aspx that allows a user to enter in customer data.

on customer.aspx, i have dropdownSalesRep which allows the user to associate a sales rep with the customer

but some customers come to directly, and not thru a sales rep, so I want the user to be able to specify "none"

Is it best to have a dummy record in my SalesReps table called "none" with an ID of say "999", or is there some other better way to deal with this?

I think this is more of a business decision. When you have to do reporting later on to track the sales, would you want to see "none" under sales rep?

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well, probably not, so assuming you don't - then is there even another way dealing with it assuming that in the underlying db, a customer must have an associated sales rep? in that reporting scenario, you'd have to write sql to filter out the "dummies" i guess.

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NuJoizey:

...assuming that in the underlying db, a customer must have an associated sales rep?

If you have to code according to that assumption, then you really have no choice than to use some sort of default value in your application with an Id of "999" or whichever you are comfortable with. Jjust make sure it doesnt get repeated. You can also use a negative value like -1 so there is no conflict with any number generated by SQL Server if your table grows.

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Another way to handle this is to store NULL in the sales rep ID. This is, in a sense, the more elegant solution since NULL means not known and you can do this and still maintain the foreign key relationship with your sales rep master table

However, many people don't like using NULL values because of their unintuitive behavior in select statements (eg, "select * from customer where SalesRepId <> 3" will NOT return rows where SalesRepId is NULL because NULL= unknown and if something is unknown it justmight be 3).

My advice is to follow ndinakar's suggestion and use a special value like -1

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great - thank you for the discussions

best practice analyser

I want to only scan several databases on a server.
So on the database list field, how shall I enter the
names, separated with comma or something else, cannot find
in the help file.
Thanks
You should use a semicolon-delimited list on the database list field.
- Christian
___________________________
Christian Kleinerman
Program Manager, SQL Engine
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"best practice analyser" <anonymous@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:756401c494e8$44305c00$a601280a@.phx.gbl...
> I want to only scan several databases on a server.
> So on the database list field, how shall I enter the
> names, separated with comma or something else, cannot find
> in the help file.
> Thanks

Begin Date and End Date

Hi all
I want my users to be able to pick between the beginning date and the end date, for Example with the code I have below they can enter in a final suit date and then they get the results through query or report or whatever, what I want for them to be able to do is enter a beginning date and an end date Between [Enter the Start Date] And [Enter the End Date]
thats how access interprets it (Jet SQL) how would I do that in SQL Server?? Help Please

SELECT TM#, LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, CONDITIONAL, DATEOFCONDITIONAL, FINALSUITDONE
FROM dbo.EmployeeGamingLicense
WHERE (FINALSUITDONE = @.Enter_FINALSUITDONE)I would have my stored procedure accept those dates as parameters. Presuming Access is still your front end, get the values from the user via a form, then pass them to the SP.|||Yes thats the front end, but can you elaborate because I'm am not getting anywhere at all..Oh GOOD GRAVY THE FRUSTRATION LEVELS IS CLIMBING..LOL|||What exactly are you trying to accomplish? How are you calling/executing the SP?|||I am trying to get it so that users can enter the beginning of the date like 12/1/2004 to 12/31/2004

I have a parameter in an ADP that allows them to enter the FinalSuit date 12/31/2005 and they see all the final suit for that date but I was wanting to give them a range, does that make sense|||To be honest, I don't use ADP's so I'm probably not your best source of info. I don't see the advantages of them, and I know of 3 Access MVP's that recommend against them.|||But when you work for a company that refuses to shell out money for a better front end then you use what you got|||Oh, Access is fine; I use it all the time. I simply stick with MDB/MDE front ends, not ADP. They seem to handle form references differently, so I figure someone with more ADP experience will be better able to help.|||Thanks for trying Its just frustrating cause Jet SQL and Sql server can be like apples and oranges|||SELECT [Main Table].[IR Number], [Main Table].Date, [Main Table].Inspector, [Main Table].Area, [Main Table].Violation, [Main Table].[Violation Type], [Main Table].Loss, [Main Table].[Loss Type], [Main Table].Employee, [Main Table].Action, [Main Table].[Action Type], [Main Table].Notes
FROM [Main Table]
WHERE ((([Main Table].Date) Between [Enter the Start Date] And [Enter the End Date]))
ORDER BY [Main Table].[IR Number]
GO