The database that I'm modeling is pretty complex, as are the business rules surrounding it, but there is method to the madness, and ultimately, integrity. I'm having trouble making QlikView understand the relationships without it constantly rationalizing my aparent circular references by loosely coupling tables.
I've attempted to simplify this with an example:
Let's take a database object that I'll call 'Rewards'. Now, in the database, a user may earn a reward for doing any number of things. They may get a reward for registering, or for making a claim, or for refering someone else to register, etc. Each reward carries a reference to the thing that caused it to happen. (I'm simplifying a lot here, I realize what I'm describing isn't exactly great design, but it's only a representation of how it actually works.)
So, a single reward record will have the fields which could potentially contain the ID of a Registration record, or a Referral record, or a Claim record, but one and only one of these will ever be populated.
When I attempt to add all of these tables (and thier respective common parent records called Members) it disconects everything because of the aparent circular references, when in actual fact there are no circular references because all of the other ID fields are blank.
The issue is, I want to be able to discuss 'Rewards' discretely as a complete object, but I also want to be able to identify which rewards occured as a result of which actions for which people. In actual fact, there are no circular references, but QlikView is protecting itself and breaking my links. I don't want to have to create discrete object types for 'Claimed Rewards, Registration Rewards, etc'.
It would seem that you have one table that can contain different objects. Identify them at load time and split them into either different fields or a complety different table. This way you avoid the circle. Then load details table multipul times to match Registration record,Referral record,Claim record. You will end up with a table for each, which is more logical anyway.
If you could post the QVD example. so I could take a look.
