Populate Admin Database

System

This project is winding down and they're now realizing that there's no interface for users to work with the admin database (the one that populates drop-downs, etc. in the DCTs). I'm sure other organizations have faced this issue - what solutions work and how well?

Since users are already getting trained on DCT usage and we have a custom process that adjusts database records based on DCR XML I was thinking of having users create DCRs to affect the tables. Some of the tables are just flat (to populate a drop-down, such as customer segment) and some have have parent/child relationships (the selection in one drop-down controls the values in a second drop-down, such as selecting a software title and then selecting one or more versions of that title), but that's about as complex as it gets. I would rather not write a DCT for each table - at the most two seems good (one for simple tables, one for related tables - but even that can probably be avoided just by hidding the child replicant). I was thinking there could be a drop-down at the top where they select which table the DCR is associated with (which names the DCR and becomes readonly on save/open), then a replicant for the parent records (one field for ID/value autopopulated and one for the drop-down label/text) and another replicant for the child records (same fields).