> Using a conventional IBO master-detail structure is the more

sensible way

> to maintain this structure since, some time, you are going to want

to

> maintain the Report table!! There's no reason why you can't run

and

> refresh an outer-joined dataset in the same transaction, for your
> report. Aside from that, doing maintenance and reporting from the

same

> transaction isn't really very reliable. Generally, you want to do
> maintenance operations in a Read Committed transaction and report

from a

> snapshot (Concurrency) transaction. You usually want a stable

view of

> database state for stuff you commit to paper. A Read Committed

view is a

> transient view, at best, ideal for interactive updating and

unreliable for

> reporting.
>
> Helen

Thanks once again Helen....this is the way I'll go.
Cheers,
Steve