How or when should you use a related table over having the data in the geodatabase?

AnthonyMosinski1 · ‎11-12-2019

I asked this question in another forum and received some feedback but wanted to ask it here as well to possibly get additional information.

For example, in my office we are collecting data, using collector, each year on species (Turkey) counts per location. Currently, we have a point shapefile created with an attribute table similar to the one below.

Site	2015Count	2015Density	2016Count	2016Density	2017Count	2017Density	2018Count	2018Density	Acres
1	54	0.027	19	0.010	15	0.008	10	0.005	1984
2	80	0.006	82	0.006	90	0.007	92	0.007	13815
3	22	0.016	30	0.022	33	0.024	36	0.026	1381
4	80	0.015	84	0.015	84	0.015	81	0.015	5456
5	71	0.001	69	0.001	63	0.001	60	0.001	79651

Our question is, should we have the data in a related table or add 2 new columns each year? We see advantages and disadvantages of both. If we switch to a related table symbolizing by certain years is not easily done, we do this often, but we do not have to continually add a column each year. However, we do need to add a new year to the domain list each year if using the related table. If we keep the data in the geodatabase it will allow us to symbolize by each year without exporting and making copies of the layer with queries to view each year.

I guess the question is, is there a standard or best practice saying that data should be in a related table when x occurs. Or is it more of a preference thing at this point since GIS can handle larger datasets now?

Also, if this should be posted in another forum I would be happy to post it there as well.

Thank you.