On the client side of the client/server data model, you can store lookup tables and “master” tables. The Microsoft Jet database on each client machine can also store all of the queries needed to access and manipulate remote data.
It’s more efficient for order entry personnel to use lookup tables to choose from a list of available products than for them to type in the name or stock number of each item in an order, but why should you store the lookup tables on the local machine? One reason is performance; local lookup tables respond to queries much more quickly.
Another reason is that the values in a lookup table are relatively static. Although the items in an organization’s product offerings may periodically change, this is usually an infrequent occurrence that can be planned for ahead of time, and the local lookup tables can be updated easily. When it’s time to update the lookup table of product offerings, you can post the updated table to the server and have all users run a query to update the local tables.
Master tables are often good candidates for client-side tables. For example, a salesperson might maintain a local table of customers and each customer might have a number of orders. By storing the customer data locally, each salesperson has access to order information for his or her respective customers. The order information itself remains in the detail table on the server where order entry personnel can update the information, accounting personnel can gather billing information, and shipping personnel can determine which orders need to be filled. Master tables can also be indexed for faster performance.