Page 3 - How do I Use Keys and High Level Keys

Keys and High Level Keys?

Employee Contact Information

Empl ID Contact Name Relationship Phone …
0000345 Smith, Jane Spouse 555-789-9823 …

0000576 Jones, Amanda Spouse 555-946-8722 …

0000928 Barrett, Robert Brother 555-82204544 …
0000687 Faulkner, John Father 555-651-4545 …

Key Field Key Field

Multi-part Key
• However, with this key alone, there is no distinction between Jane Smith, Amanda Jones, Robert Barrett,
or John Faulkner. If you queried the database by Employee ID alone, you would receive all five of the data
rows below.
• You can use a multi-part key to help you with these types of queries. Using both the Employee ID and the
Contact Name fields to access the data, you are ensured to receive the correct information.

Add
• To enter a new high-level key into the database, you use the Add action type. For example, your
organization has all current employees entered in Compass. This enables updates to personal information
and employee status changes.
• When a new employee is hired into the organization, you must create a new high-level key and add the
employee to the database, otherwise, a database record will not be available. This key becomes the
unique identifier, or Employee ID, and is used to access this employee's record.
Things to Note

• Think of the Compass database like a filing cabinet. The cabinet contains all the company's employee
information.
• To ensure you retrieve the correct file folder from the file cabinet, each is labeled with an Employee ID.
The Employee ID is considered a high-level key. In other words, it uniquely identifies one employee file
from another.

• You may want to access Amanda Jones' personnel file. However, there may be three Susan Jones within
the company. How do you know which Susan Jones file to access?
• If you were simply to open the file cabinet, it would take some time to find the correct file folder.
However, by uniquely identifying data with a high-level key, Compass can determine an exact match to a
particular piece of data within the system. This makes data retrieval much more efficient and accurate.
• In summary, the fields that uniquely identify your data are called the keys. A high-level key is a unique
piece of data that is specific to only one record in the database table.

Need Additional Help?

For additional help, please contact the Finance Support Center in one of two ways:
Online: https://emory-salesforce.com
Phone: 404727-700Mondays| 9:00 am – noon; Tuesday – Friday| 9:00 am – noon and 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

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