PHP MySQL Concept Question

[savagenoob]

I am building a website program for insurance agents that will maintain customers and their agency for them. I need to have them seperated by agencies and all the clients seperated by agency/office/agent for reports and such. I will be hosting it on GoDaddy and cannot invision how I can create seperate databases (GoDaddy assignes each database a different ip to connect and I dont believe I can remotely create databases) and config files for each agency that uses the program so all the clients aren't stored on the same database tables. Maybe someone who has done a similar project can share some input. Maybe give me feedback if I should attempt to keep all the agencies data within the same database.

[ngreenwood6]

You have no need to create separate databases. One database should suffice for your project. You should look into database normalization. You would want to create separate tables in the same database. Basically you want to have separate tables for agencies, offices, and clients with a linking value. Generally you would use an id to link them. I will give you a basic example of what I mean:

 

Database - insurance

 

table - agencies

field - id

field - name

 

table - office

field - id

field - name

 

table - clients

field - id

field - name

field - address

field - office_id //this would be the same id in the office table

field - agency_id //this would be the same id in the agencies table

 

Then if you ever needed to change an agency name or office name you would not have to go in and change every single client. This links all your clients to their offices and agencies. This is just a basic example but hopefully it makes sense.