A conceptual question

[Medi Montaseri]

Hi,

I am a software engineer in my 40s, hence becoming interested in
business...a friend pointed out that this is a usual thing...anyways I have
a business process related question...

Say I have a web based data entry phase where certain financial data such as
expenses and revenues are entered. I then want an auditor (or a manager) to
review that report, resolve any questions, perhaps alter some values and
finally click "Verified" which makes that set of records permanent (or
golden). Assume we have a RDBMS database behind all this.

As you noted, basically the data set is going thru two phases; 1)
DATA_ENTERED, 2) DATA_VALIDATED.

I can think of three ways to solve this.
A) Have two identical databases, enter data into db1, resolve and possibly
alter data in db1. Then whence the data is validated, insert it into db2.
B) Just use one database, but have identical temp tables
C) Use one database, one table, but have an extra column describing the
state of data

What do you think?
Please email me your reply.

Medi