CDM+ Program Organization

CDM+ is a relational database program. This means much of the information in the different program areas is interconnected. The advantage of this is that a change usually needs to be made only in one place. For example, if an address is changed in the Address Records, then the giving statements connected to that family would be mailed to the new address. The charts following this section represent the interconnectedness of the CDM+ database.

In archiving, it is very important to understand the relationships between different records In relational database programs, relationships are referred to as parent-child relationships. For example, an Address Record is a parent record. Individual Records are child records to an address record. Attendance Records are child records to Individual and Address Records. 

When archiving parent records that have a relationship to child records, then both the parent and child records are archived simutaneously. For example, if you archive Attendance Records, then only Attendance Records are removed. The archive utility will copy all of the related information needed for attendance (i.e., individual records, address records, master coding system), but will only remove the Attendance Records. However, if you archive out an Individual Record, then CDM+ will remove ALL related Attendance Records (and all other child records of Individual Records) in addition to the Individual Records. The parent-child relationship of records is important to keep in mind so that you understand what is removed when you archive.