Table sharing

In an LN installation with multiple companies, you can require two or more companies to share tables to meet a particular business requirement. For example, if several of your companies purchase items from the same suppliers, these companies can share the business-partner table.

Purpose

Table sharing has the following advantages:

  • The data that is entered is available in all other companies. The required work for data entry is reduced.
  • Consistency of data is ensured between companies.

Table sharing can have the following disadvantages:

  • Table sharing can cause errors if set up incorrectly.
  • Table sharing can lead to very larges tables, which can reduce performance.
  • If the table sharing is achieved by using data replication, you must perform regular replication actions.
Methods

You can apply one of the following two methods of table sharing:

  • table sharing- data is effectively maintained in one location; changes are instantaneously visible in all companies.
  • data replication- data is maintained separately in several companies; changes in one company are effective in other companies after replication.

Two types of data replication exist.

  • Continuous replication by using a messaging system. You can use Infor ERP LN Business Adapter to achieve continuous replication. Continuous replication is not further discussed here.
  • batch-oriented replication.

You can also organize your work process to copy the data modifications in one company manually to the other companies. That is suitable for slowly-changing, static data, such as language codes and country codes.

Table references

The table-sharing configuration must take the table references into account. Otherwise, the referential integrity can be damaged.

The consequences of a table reference depend on the table reference's Reference Mode.

  • If table A has a field that refers to table B, and the Reference Mode is Mandatory, then the following rule applies:

    • If two companies share table A, they must also share table B.

  • If a table A has a field that refers to table B, and the reference mode is Mandatory unless empty, then the following rule applies:

    • If two companies share table A, they must also share table B, unless the referring field is always left empty.
  • If the Reference Mode is Not mandatory, no additional restrictions apply.
Example

The Items - General table has a Country of Origin field, that has a reference to the Countries table with the Reference Mode set to Mandatory unless empty.

Suppose the Items - General table is shared between company 100 and 200, and the Countries table is not shared. If you insert a new country code in company 100, and you insert that country code in the Country of Origin field for an item, you will get a reference error if you look at the same item in company 200. If you view the item in company 200, the item's country of origin displays as "*****". If you use the item, a fatal error occurs. To prevent this, the Countries table must also be shared or the Country of Origin field must always be kept empty.

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