David,

The answer to your question is a qualified yes without knowing what
database and platform is being used.

I have linked access databases and SQL tables outside of TMS to TMS
tables by using the ID field (IE: objectID, conID), found in each TMS table.

Using Crystal Reports I write reports that join the TMS and non-TMS
tables or just the non-TMS tables.

The reports are selected from the TMS reports menus and work well.

I'm very curious about your conservation db. Our conservators also
find the TMS conservation assistant less than thrilling. Can you
share any of the design with us?

David Parsell
Yale University Art Gallery and The Yale Center for British Art




  At 11:03 AM 1/22/2007, you wrote:
>Good morning,
>
>Because I wasn't fast enough with exploring the possibility of adapting
>the conservation modules of TMS in a manner that was acceptable for our
>conservation department, they went ahead and created their own database
>that they use for their own purposes.  It's a beautiful database, and is
>very useful for them.  They also had very strong feelings of mistrust of
>the security abilities of TMS and did not want access to many of their
>reports to general users.
>
>Now, though, they are starting to realize some of the benefits of having
>at least some of their data accessible through TMS.  They don't want to
>talk about mapping a conversion to dump their data into TMS yet, but
>they think that they want the ability within TMS to capture a report of
>specific fields from their database.  They suggested doing this through
>some sort of hyperlink.
>
>I haven't talked with Gallery Systems about this yet, but I will.  I
>have a feeling that this is not an unique problem for me, though, so was
>curious about if anyone was dealing with multiple databases and trying
>to merge them in a way that would enable both to operate dynamically or
>independently?  Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>David
>
>David Aylsworth
>Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
>Registrar for Collections
>telephone:  713-639-7824
>fax:  713-639-7780