We’re excited to announce that a new enhancement is now available to our Kahootz Enterprise clients – a facility to link one-or-more Kahootz databases together via a Linked Database column.
This much-requested feature allows database owners to associate entries held in one Kahootz database with multiple others and create referential back-links where required.
Linked Database columns effectively let you ‘re-use’ data that is managed in another Kahootz database and therefore avoid potential issues around data duplication and make it much easier for you to document complex relationships across multiple databases.
Managing and sharing assets
A key component of any cloud collaboration service is the ability for users to share project and corporate assets, such as documents. However, rather than locking information away in spreadsheets, Kahootz databases have, for years, enabled our clients to capture, share, update and report on a wide range of records, such as; Risk & Issue Registers, Lesson Learnt Logs, Contact Lists, Bibliographies, Project Timesheets, Staff Ideas and even the sharing of Car-Pooling Opportunities.
Joining-up Kahootz databases with Linked Database columns
With the addition of our new Linked Database capability, the possibilities for asset and data management and information navigation are dramatically enhanced.
For example, a Linked Database column type can now be added in a database of Projects, in order to:
- Create a Team Members column and reference one-or-more contacts held in the People database.
- Use the People database to select and populate a Project Manager field in the Projects database.
- Associate details of participating partner agencies, from a database of Organisations.
Creating Bi-directional Relationships
When adding a Linked Database column, you are presented with an option to name and insert a reciprocal column, in the database that is being linked to. This becomes useful should you want to:
- Show in the People database the Projects to which individuals have been assigned to as Team Members in the Projects database.
- Record Issues and relate them to a Project and then be able to see all project-related Issues via the Projects database.
Helping you to relate entries in the same database
When Linking database rows together there are occasions where it is useful to create a circular reference (sometimes known as a “Pig’s Ear”) between two records in the same database. Good illustrations of this are when you need to build hierarchical structures to:
- Create referential links to show reporting lines between staff and their managers in a database of People – and perhaps even show a person’s line manager’s manager etc.
- Manage bi-directional or hierarchical relationships between Organisations and their subsidiaries and/or business partners.
Improving Records Management and Information Discovery
Once relationships between databases have been created and populated, Linked Database Columns provide an excellent way for Kahootz users to navigate across entries in multiple databases to locate related information, realise potential dependencies and uncover useful information and resources.
If you would like to experiment with Linked Databases, why not set up a free trial and contact us requesting an upgrade to Kahootz Enterprise.
