Using an SQL address book

Once the Dynamic SQL Address Book is fully configured, the contact data in the Address Book is automatically pulled from the external directory. The SQL Address Book looks the same as a FootPrints Address Book.  The SQL Address Book data is not stored in a FootPrints Address Book table; it is always taken directly from the external directory. However, the contact data for a particular customer, when chosen using the Select Contact button on the Create Issue or Edit Issue pages, is saved along with the history of the Issue. 

Note

If any records in the external database are missing data in the Primary Key field that you select, FootPrints cannot find those records. This is a specific characteristic of Access.

The contact data saved in an Issue is a snapshot of the data taken from the SQL database at the time the Select Contact was performed. If the customer’s data changes at a later date (for example, the customer's phone number changes), it is not reflected in the history of the Issue. It is reflected the next time the customer's contact data is accessed from the SQL directory.

Limitations of SQL Address Book

Using a SQL directory, once properly configured, is no different than using a FootPrints Address Book, with the following exceptions:

  • FootPrints permits only read access to an external directory.  Write access is not available in the current release.
  • If a server limit is set on the number of contacts to be returned for a SQL query and if you are attempting to look at any query that would return a number of results greater than the server limit, some of the results are missing and the missing results may be randomly dispersed throughout. This most commonly appears when browsing through the entire Address Book. A more specific search for a contact works correctly even if that contact does not appear when browsing the Address Book.To correct this problem, the number of results returned for a SQL query can be raised on the external server (Exchange, Sun ONE Directory Server, etc.)

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*