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Asked: 2026-05-18T21:23:37+00:00

I’d like to get some advice on database design. Specifically, consider the following (hypothetical)

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I’d like to get some advice on database design. Specifically, consider the following (hypothetical) scenario:

  • Employees – table holding all employee details
  • Users – table holding employees that have username and password to access software
  • UserLog – table to track when users login and logout and calculate
    time on software

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In this scenario, if an employee leaves the company I also want to make sure I delete them from the Users table so that they can no longer access the software. I can achieve this using ON DELETE CASCADE as part of the FK relationship between EmployeeID in Employees and Users.

However, I don’t want to delete their details from the UserLog as I am interested in collating data on how long people spend on the software and the fact that they no longer work at the company does not mean their user behaviour is no longer relevant.

What I am left with is a table UserLog that has no relationships with any other tables in my database. Is this a sensible idea?

Having looked through books etc / googled online I haven’t come across any DB schemas with tables that have no relationships with others and so my gut instinct here is saying that my approach is not robust…

I’d appreciate some guidance please.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    My personal preference in this case would be to “soft delete” an employee by adding a “DeletedDate” column to the Employees table. This will allow you to maintain referential integrity with your UserLog table and all details for all employees, past and present, remain available in the database.

    The downside to this approach is that you need to add application logic to check for active employees.

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