The documents table is a no go for us because any more than a couple of hundred and the user interface grinds to halt when trying to browse through it.

I use a combination of "a survey for each data source" and use the external references on the sources tab to link to the actual data source on the file system (and I use the "display as" attribute to note down who it came from and when we got it). This has the advantage that I can just double click on something in the external sources and up pops the original data. It has the disadvantage that the "display as" attribute is just free text, so I can't easily bring up eg all data received from John Smith. Having 10,000 surveys can also cause some minor delays eg in the report wizard while it lists them all, but as long as you organise everything with tags, the observation hierachy is perfectly useable.

Hi

The private tab on the Taxon Ocurrence can hold  a lot of  information about a record.

Mantis 658/690 – Adds a new table ‘Taxon_Private_Data’ and fully supports this as a new tab ‘Private’ tab on the Occurrences. This table replaces the Taxon_Occurrence_Ext_Ref table and existing external refs will be transferred to this table. Field lengths have been increased and additional fields added. 

Users can set up other types through the terms list. This facility is designed to meet a variety of user requirements to add additional information to Occurrences which will not be exported.  System Supplied support is provided for importing and reporting on external references. Other types of private data can be set up via the terms list and this alone will allow data entry. For importing and use in the import wizard additional table entries are required in the Import Wizard and Reporting tables. This can be done by users with the appropriate technical skills, by directly accessing the tables.   

Fields in the new table are for general use and have non-specific names.  It is suggested that users explain the meaning of terms for a specific type in the description.  The description field in the terms list will be displayed when a term list is chosen and will assist in consistency in making or adjusting entries.  The possible uses of the Private data table include the management of work in progress, for example looking into duplicates or investigating anomalies.