Producer Help - Database Storage Items

If you want to store data into the connected database(s), you need to define Storage Items. Storage Items contains the information of the column name in which you want to save your information like photos or print dates. These Storage Items will be presented in the Storage Items section of the Data tab in the Explorer Menu of the Designer and where they will be connect to the right Object Type. See Objects and Standard Object Types sections of this Help file for more information.

For each connected database you can define storage items. Just click on the database name on the left side to select and click on Add to define a storage item. You can add unlimited storage items for each connected database.

Storage Items are supported starting from Premium and Higher Editions and are configured in the last page of the Database Connection Wizard. For more information about the Database Connection Wizard and examples of how to make Database connections, please see the Databases section of this Help file. In this section, we will explain all the available functionality of the Storage Items section of the wizard.

The Storage Items section of the wizard is divided into three different sections which are the Available Storage Items section on the left side showing all the available databases and their created storage items, The Storage Items Properties group, and the Value Properties group.

The Storage Item Properties

This section, indicated with the red rectangle, shows four important properties:

Storage Item Property	Description
Item name	Enter a name for the storage item like Photo, Print Date, etc.
Table Name	Select the table from the database where you are storing the data
Primary Key	Select the Primary Key from the selected database
Column Name	Select the column name from the selected table

CardExchange® Producer not only offers storing data into multiple connected databases, you can also store data in multiple tables. That makes this section so powerful. For example, you are connected to a database containing a view that combines two tables, for example Student and Student Photo, with a so called LEFT INNER JOIN connection. A LEFT INNER JOIN view shows all the records of the Student table with the photos of the Student Photo table. Even if there is no photo for the Student available in the Student Photo table, the Student record will be shown.

Everybody knows that you cannot store data into the database via an LEFT INNER JOIN view because updating one record will update all records and therefore, in most of the competitive applications you simply cannot store information back into the database when connecting to a view like this.

With CardExchange® Producer you select directly the Table, Primary Key, and Column Name. In this example we would select the Table 'Student Photo', the Primary Key 'StudentID', and the Column 'StudentPhoto'. Now when we store the photo, it will be stored directly into the correct column out passing the connected view.

The Value Properties

This section, indicated with the red rectangle, shows three properties. You can Supply for a new value for the selected column which means that the data will always be added to the table and will not only update the record. You can use the options under the tabs to specify the usage of the storage-item (like photos) so CardExchange® Producer knows that it will handle images instead of normal columns.

This is a very important setting because Storage Items are normally processed on the moment that the card is produced. Of course, when taking photos or capturing signatures, you would prefer to store the image directly and not at the end of the print process. When selecting this option, the Storage Item will be processed immediately.

You can also set the option Use selected column as counter. This will increase the column every time you print a record.