How to Successfully use the Master tables within Qooling

In this article, we will explain how to successfully use the Master tables in Qooling. In short, the use of master tables helps in creating a well-structured, efficient, and easily maintainable database. It promotes data consistency and enables the management of data in a standardized manner, which is essential for the reliability of a database system.

Imagine you need to update information about your customers. Picture having 50 customers already listed in your Master table, and now you want to add an additional 20 new customers. With Qooling, this process becomes a breeze—you can automate it and swiftly incorporate new data into the Master table(s).

But that's not all! There are various other scenarios where having a Master table comes in handy. Whether it's managing information about Suppliers, Types of Injury, Departments, Causes, Containers, Damage Descriptions, Internal Materials, Method Statements, or anything else, a Master table simplifies the process and makes it super efficient.

 First off, we will navigate to the Master tables. 

Creating a new Master table is easy—just click on "new". Let's walk through an example where we're making a Master table for Customers. In this table, we'll add two text fields and name them: "Customer name" and "Customer number". Once you've done that, simply click on Save to finalize your new Master table. It's as simple as that!

Now, if you click on the existing Master table (Customers), you'll see the following:

Adding data to the Master table is a breeze, and you have two options to choose from: "New entry" and "Import". If you opt for the "New entry" button, you can manually input new data directly into the Master table. On the other hand, if you choose the "Import" button, you can effortlessly bring in data from an Excel spreadsheet. This is particularly handy when you have a batch of new Customers to add—you can perform a mass import with ease.

New entry:

Import: 
If you prefer to import data, you'll need to use an Excel spreadsheet. Just list the "Customer name" and "Customer number" side by side at the top of the sheet, like this. Once you've added all the customer details to the Excel spreadsheet, save it as a (.csv) file. 

Now, click on the import button and select the file. If you've followed all the steps, you'll see the following screen:

Click on "Import", and watch as the data smoothly loads into the Master table.

When adding only new data to an existing master table, the process is simplified - there’s no need to choose a column from the ‘matching columns’ tab. The new data seamlessly integrates into the Master table without any additional steps. 

For those seeking to update the complete existing master table where new entries will be added, where current entries that are still active stay active, and where you can archive old entries (for example former projects), an efficient solution is to import a dataset containing all your recent data (for example all current customers). In this case, simply select your ‘matching column’ while importing your data set. The system will automatically designate matching data from the existing dataset as active and will add the new entries in the master table. All the entries that are in your master table, but are not in your imported data set will be archived.

As you can observe, there are no duplicates, and the data has successfully loaded into the Master table. Now that we've loaded the data into the Master table, it's time to put it to use. We'll achieve this by adding an Integration field.

Navigate to the Forms module, and open a new dynamic form. Click on an integration field. 

Now we can link the Master table to this Integration field. We click on the “Link” and “Selected columns” to use the Master table. It will look like this:

After you Save the form, we can finally make use of the Master table (in the form). Click on “New entry” next to the form you added the Integration field to. 

As you can see, you have the option to select the customers that were initially added to the Master table. This marks the successful utilization of the Master table.