It seems that this week its all SQL issues.
I would like some help / input as to best practice here.
Ive been asked to scope a new application for handling various documents / orders and so on in one of our warehouses.
The plan is that at each stage where a signature is required to use some kind of electronic sig pad to get a signature from the appropriate person (s) and print this to the documentation.
Being as this data has to be kept for a number of years, and our paperwork seems to have its format changed every few months this gives me a slight problem.
As I see it I have a few options.
1) Keep Each paperwork template as seperate, so that if it changes we can still print out the exact paperwork format that was originally signed. More coding effort required up front to ensure we can handle the templates, but more flexible long term.
2) Keep a single Current template, and when an order is signed, create a pdf of it and save it as a file. (After all, once an order is signed we wont be changing the paperwork, and this makes a relatively immutable copy). However this means I need to decide to store the pdf's either as files, or as blobs in the database.
Bearing in mind if I chose Option 1 I will need to save the signature jpegs somewhere.
So, for best practice am I better off storing this information in a database, or as files ?
(typically you could be looking at 4000 documents a year, and as some need 2 signatures, about 7000 signature images, we need to keep these images for 3 years before they can be archived off. Im nervous with the idea of having to manage some 12000 documents and 21000 image files on my server, but I have this suspicion that this type of data should not be going into the database...)
Thoughts, comments anyone?
I would like some help / input as to best practice here.
Ive been asked to scope a new application for handling various documents / orders and so on in one of our warehouses.
The plan is that at each stage where a signature is required to use some kind of electronic sig pad to get a signature from the appropriate person (s) and print this to the documentation.
Being as this data has to be kept for a number of years, and our paperwork seems to have its format changed every few months this gives me a slight problem.
As I see it I have a few options.
1) Keep Each paperwork template as seperate, so that if it changes we can still print out the exact paperwork format that was originally signed. More coding effort required up front to ensure we can handle the templates, but more flexible long term.
2) Keep a single Current template, and when an order is signed, create a pdf of it and save it as a file. (After all, once an order is signed we wont be changing the paperwork, and this makes a relatively immutable copy). However this means I need to decide to store the pdf's either as files, or as blobs in the database.
Bearing in mind if I chose Option 1 I will need to save the signature jpegs somewhere.
So, for best practice am I better off storing this information in a database, or as files ?
(typically you could be looking at 4000 documents a year, and as some need 2 signatures, about 7000 signature images, we need to keep these images for 3 years before they can be archived off. Im nervous with the idea of having to manage some 12000 documents and 21000 image files on my server, but I have this suspicion that this type of data should not be going into the database...)
Thoughts, comments anyone?
