Category vs. New Database

[Nate Sheets]

Hi everyone,

I am using the Database feature within invison community's admin panel. 

Can anyone tell me the pro's and con's of when to make something a category vs. a separate database which can link to information. 

I am holding data such as:

• An entry that represents each child of a user (they may have 2 or three)
• Various "profiles" for each child (e.g. behaviors, strengths, incidents, etc.)

I am inclined to put all of this into one database and simply use categories. Permissions seem to be working (only me and the user can see entries, not community as a whole). 

Any advice on when it is good to use a different database? Does this slow things down? Thanks!

[opentype]

Different databases make sense if you have completely different kind of data sets. For example: If I wanted to create a book database that also stores authors and publishing houses, I would create 3 separate databases and link the authors and publishers from the book database. 

Categories make sense if the data is similar, but a structure makes sense for the user and/or if fields need to vary. That book database might have a field for number of book pages, that gets turned off just for the e-book category for example. 

Lastly, it can also make sense to not use categories at all when you want to use fields as filters which can act on the entire database, not just categories. 

[Joel R]

A single database is easier to manage.  But as @opentype mentioned, you only need different databases if the entire structure and fields will be different.  

If you need custom layouts, I do recommend @opentype for custom work.  He's our community's Pages guru.