I have many tables with the same number of columns and names, because they are all lookup tables. For example, there are LabelType and TaskType tables. The LabelType and TaskType tables have TypeID and TypeName columns. They will be used as a foreign key in other tables, such as the LabelType table, with the shippingLog table and the TaskType table with the EmployeeTask table.
LabelType Table
TypeID TypeName
1 Fedex
2 UPS
3 USPS
TaskType Table
TypeID TypeName
1 Receiving
2 Pickup
3 Shipping
So far I have over 20 tables, and I expect this to continue. I have no problem with this, but I'm just wondering if there is a better or smarter way to use tables or not. I even thought of combining all these tables as one table of search types and distinguishing them by adding a foreign key from the search table. The search table may contain data such as Label, Task, etc. Then I just need one or two tables for all this search data.
Please let me know if you have a better or smarter way of modeling data.
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