Hi John,

The question was raised, why a staff member needs to be shown in the contact list?

Now I am wondering if there are any disadvantages, if I remove the link of the staff record to the Contact record?

The only thing I have noted so far is the Associations.

Is there anything else, that will be an issue if I remove the link?

Thanks

Kind regards

Regine

Hi Regine,

I guess there is a philosophical answer and a practical one. Philosophically, we tend to think that similar items belong in the same table. Staff members are "people" and you may want to do the things with them that you do with people: map their addresses, send them emails, make them the contact on an appointment, etc. If they're in the same table as your other people then any functionality you add to "people" (like sending SMS notifications) you get to use for staff as well. That's the big reason why they are there.

Practically, I don't think you want to break the link between Staff and Contacts as you'd lose a few things on the staff screen (like their avatar) and you'd need to then create a place for information about them (like notes, phone numbers, and multiple addresses)...all of which are already in Contacts.

But this is something reasonable people disagree about.

Hi John,

Thanks for your response.

I don't know if we will use it for staff correspondence and notes. Mostly I would say this would be confidential, so probably won't go in there.

Anyway, I just wanted to ensure, I am not breaking anything, if I drop the link.

Thanks

Kind regards

Regine

Make sense. You will be breaking things, just maybe not things you care about.