Tech Tuesday: Table Joins in SmartList Builder

Our Product Specialist, Nicole Albertson, will be clearing up the confusion around which Link Method to use when you are joining two tables in SmartList Builder for today's Tech Tuesday. 

Equals:

This option will exclude any records that don't exist in both tables from the results. A record must exist in both the table you are linking and the table you are linking it to for it to be included in the results. 

Left Outer: 

This option will include all of the records from the first table and all matching records from the second table.

For example:

Let's take the Customers and their addresses. You can have a customer without entering an address, but you cannot enter an address without entering a customer.

So, if I use an Equals join between the Customer Master and the Customer Address Master, I am only going to get the customers that do have addresses.

If I use a Left Outer join, I will get all the customers and the address if they have one. 

Table Order in the Link:

The other thing to take into consideration with this is the order you link the tables into the SmartList Builder setup.

If I add the Customer Master table and then link the Customer Address Master table to it using a Left Outer join, I will get all the customers and then any addresses the customers have saved.

If I add the Customer Address Master table and then link the Customer Master table to it using a Left Outer join, I will get all the addresses and any customer information for those addresses. I will not get the customers that don't have addresses.

If I add the Customer Master table and then link the Customer Address Master table to it using an Equals join, I will get only the customers that have addresses saved and those addresses.

If I add the Customer Address Master table and then link the Customer Master table to it using an Equals join, I will get all of the addresses and any customer information for those addresses. This is because you cannot have a address record without the customer record being there as well. If a customer doesn't have an address, they will not be returned as they aren't in both tables. 

Side Note:

The Left Outer join is almost always slower than an Equals join. A Left Outer has to do all the work of an Equals plus the extra work of null-extending the results. It would also be expected to return more rows, further increasing the total execution time simply due to the larger size of the result set.

Hopefully this helps you think about how you might link the tables in your setup. If you are in doubt, try it a couple of different ways and see if you get the results you would expect. You can always change it.

Interested in learning more about SmartList Builder? Email sales@eonesolutions.com for more information!

Send Your SmartList Builder Feature Requests Our Way!

It has been a great week with our friends here in Tampa, at the GPUG Summit. If you weren't able to make it to the Summit this year, please do consider joining us at Convergence or at next year's Summit in St. Louis, MO.

In Tampa, we've loved hearing about your excitement around SmartList Builder and all it contains - Excel Report Builder, Drill Down Builder, and Navigation List Builder. (It's always fun to have to add 3 rows of chairs to a room already packed with 105 people waiting to learn more about the Builder tools!)

With SmartList Builder coming home to eOne starting January 1st, 2014, we want to make sure you know that now is the time to send in feature requests! Start asking yourself:

1. If there's any change in SmartList Builder that I'd like to see, what would that be?
2. What addition to SmartList Builder would help my daily processes?
3. What SmartList Builder feature could be enhanced or added to save me time?

So, if you have a feature request to send our way, please don't hesitate to let us know! It's easy to do. Just head to our website and enter your request in our forum dedicated to learning more about what customers want!

We look forward to hearing from you!