We offer a very customizable product and have created a custom object, "Product Request". A saleforce consultant has created the object with lookup relationship to the "Opportunity" associated and another lookup relationship to the "Account".
Are two lookup relationships redundant, since "Account" a field in "Opportunities"? More broadly, if I want ot learn more about it, what topic is this issue?
Data Modeling? Database architecture? Relational Database Architecture? Database Normalization?
Hello
Salesforce is special in terms of how it handles object relationships.
So most database normalization rules do not truly apply. You could benefit from some of them. But, the way Salesforce is architecte, makes it so that you benefit from breaking some of the normalization rules.
Mind you, the same applies to normal relational databases. But, the Governor limits in Salesforce do not exist in most context where a relational database in used.
In terms of optimizing you model, I would say add as many relationships as possible from the start.
For example, you might be working with Account records, and need related Product Request records.
It would much easier to write the code if you have a direct link between the objects.
It will also use less Governor resources.
Finally, what you do depends you model and your workflows/processes. You need as much experience with these 2 to be able to gage whether there is a problem with your model or not.
