Bridge Columns

Some tables contain links to records in other tables.

For example, Line Items are linked to Orders using an order_id column. These IDs are generated by the Quick Docket server when records are created.

If you are importing data from an existing system, you will not know these database IDs. Normally, you would first need to export the IDs from Quick Docket and then map them to your existing data before importing.

Using Bridge Columns

To simplify imports, Quick Docket provides bridge columns.

A bridge column allows you to reference a parent record using a value that is already unique, rather than its database ID.

For example:

• Users can be referenced by their email address instead of user_id.
• Customers can be referenced by their code instead of customer_id.

This makes it much easier to import data from another system, as you can reference values that already exist in your data without needing to perform additional mapping.

Bridge columns are provided wherever practical throughout the import system to simplify the migration of existing data into Quick Docket.

TIP

When both a database ID and a bridge column value are provided the database ID will be preferred over the bridge column.