Database Merge

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Ardavan
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat May 15, 2010 9:10 am

Database Merge

Post by Ardavan » Wed May 15, 2019 11:37 am

Hello OpenDental team,

We have had your team help merge two of our databases and the results were as advertised, however we are considering merging several more but the duplication has us considering other options. We have over a hundred users and dozens of providers in each database, and they're the same across all databases, so a typical merge will result in over a thousand users in OD with multiple copies of each (one from each merged database)

I imagine the tools you use for the merge change the primary keys of the "not main" databases before adding their rows to the "main" database. If that is the case would it be possible to forgo inserting users, providers and other potentially redundant entries, and instead just changing the primary keys on the other tables to the values in the "main" database then proceed with the merge?

I have started brainstorming how I might approach the problem, but was wondering if your methods have changed since our last merge (2016 or 17 if I'm not mistaken).

One idea I had was to write a plugin which runs on the "main" or a "virgin" instance and just reads a database dump or connects to another database and reads table by table row by row, using the standard methods to enter the read data into its own instance.

Anyways I'm curious to hear from you guys if you've had similar requests or ever considered using another method?
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who will laugh at this joke, and those who won't. ~Annonymous Bug Writer

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cmcgehee
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Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 5:06 pm
Location: Salem, Oregon

Re: Database Merge

Post by cmcgehee » Wed May 15, 2019 12:02 pm

Database merges are handled by our Conversions department, and I don't think they look at this forum. You could email them at conversions@opendental.com with your questions.
Chris McGehee
Open Dental Software
http://www.opendental.com

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Ardavan
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat May 15, 2010 9:10 am

Re: Database Merge

Post by Ardavan » Wed May 15, 2019 1:20 pm

Thank you Chris, you're always helpful, quick to respond, and on point!
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who will laugh at this joke, and those who won't. ~Annonymous Bug Writer

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