Data Structure Of Assets - Pick Best and Explain / Suggest Superior Solution

Question

I am not a developer, so forgive me if this is not making sense.

I have like something like 150 types of items. As an example, take

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Meat...

Each type of item has a bunch of attributes. Some of these attributes are common among all items, some are unique. Continuing with the example:
For fruits:

• Type.
• Color.
• Company.

For meats:

• Type.
• StorageTime.
• Company.

In the actual problem, there are about 30 common attributes across all 150 items. Unique attributes range from 0 to around 15 +/-.

The fields showing Company above will be a multi-value field. There will be a separate table that hosts an index of all companies with its own set of dossier information, and some links to some documents.

Using the example, the actual need is to develop a good way to do the following with the least possible of coding hours (none is best):

• Generate a table that shows some combined attributes in a one line format with some other attribute fields. This table must be able to use URL query filters
• Allows drilling into all attributes so users can filter themselves from the above table
• Generate tables that will be able to be URL query filtered by the company field above, which is a multivalue field.
• Bonus ability would be to open a document from the generated table filtered by the company. Each company would only have one document.

From my limited insight and knowledge, I have come up with some options. Please pick one that you think is best and explain why. Or come up with something else that you think will work better. Thanks!

1. [Option 1] - Create a company table, and create one table with all the attribute fields. Programmatically create views that when filtered by the company or item type that only the common attributes will show. Then allow filters to filter by item type to show an expanded list of all relevant attributes of that type of item for that company and the selected item type
2. [Option 2] - Create a company table, create one table with all common attributes, create multiple tables with each type of item with unique attributes. Create 150 unique display forms joining the tables into one by SPD. Create links from calculated columns in the common attribute table that points to a calculated link for the web pages of each item type.
3. [Option 3] - Create a company table, create one table for each of the item types with all the attributes added. Somehow create a query that displays the common attributes that are also filterable at the same time by URL query string

Obviously, there is some effort involved in each of these approaches but without actually going through some trial and error, it is quite hard to actually have the assurance that one will work better than the other.

Appreciate any suggestions one can give. Thanks!

Answer 1

Here is the approach I would do

1. Create a custom list to store all the companies in it.
2. Create site columns for each attribute. Ex Type, Color, StorageTime etc
3. Now create Content Type for each type and add respective site columns Ex: FruitType will have columns Type, Color & Company will be a lookup column
4. Now create another custom list to store the information
5. Attach content types to the list

Now you can create different views to display the information.